


Welcome To The Family

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Adventure, Babies, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Mystery, Peril, Post-Game, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-06-28 15:26:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 66,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15710001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: In which Rook is left holding the baby, danger comes to Hope County again, and he might need to turn some old enemies into new allies.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I'm doing, so there will probably be more tags added later. I was supposed to be writing something completely different, but I replayed that one mission and now there's this.

Kim opens the door half into her jacket when Rook shows up at the house, though he's pretty sure that he's early. Kim said they weren't heading off until five, which is, he checks his watch, still twenty minutes from now.

"Thank you for doing this, Rook." She just leaves the door to swing, letting him duck his way inside and bump it shut behind him.

"No problem, I've told you before, you guys deserve a night out." He can hear Nick yelling something that might be a greeting from at least two rooms away.

He follows Kim into the back, where baby Rye is laid out in her crib, kicking excitably with both legs, like she can shunt her way to the top, to possible freedom. 

"Hey, Peanut." Rook leans over the crib, squishes her cheeks until she makes happy noises and flails at him. He likes to think she recognises his face and knows it means adventure. He almost never gets the same enthusiasm from adults, who are too familiar with the sort of adventure that normally happens to him. He is capable of having danger-free adventures, he's had at least three danger-free adventures in the last month alone, not including the one that ended with someone getting mauled by a bear. Though they weren't part of his adventuring party, so maybe that one counts.

"She has a name, Rook," Kim says from behind him, prodding him gently but meaningfully in the ribs.

Rook knows, it's just a terrible name, which is why he's been calling her Peanut, just in case Nick and Kim come to their senses and change their minds. 

He moves out of the way, so Kim can lean down and scoop her up, before she turns and offers her over. She's a warm, dribbly little weight that immediately flops against his chest, apparently unsure whether to clench his t-shirt in her fists, or try to eat it. She eventually settles for attempting both at the same time. Rook doesn't bother to discourage her from her mission, because his clothes have been through much, much worse.

Kim watches her indulgently while she pulls her boots on.

"We'll be back by midnight, so you only have to watch her until then." Her eyes narrow just a little. "And I know you, Rook, your impatience is legend. I know that the moment there's some sort of emergency, or disaster, or even a hint of trouble you'll want to drop her off with Adelaide, and go try and solve it."

"I don't do that every time," Rook protests. Because it's true, he doesn't do that every time - maybe thirty percent of the time? But Hope County is still an interesting place to live, even after everything that happened. Also, he is still technically a deputy, even when he's off duty. To be honest 'off duty' had become somewhat confusing during the two months fighting the cult, and then the three months in a bunker underground not fighting the cult but still sort of wanting to.

"I don't care," Kim says, giving one hard tug at her laces. "I don't care if there's another natural disaster, I don't care if it's a zombie apocalypse. You will _stay_ with her this time."

Rook frowns. "But if there's an actual zombie apocalypse -" 

Kim doesn't let him finish.

"No, Rook, I need to know she's your first priority, promise me you'll stay with her."

"Fine, I promise," he tells her. "She'll be with me. And in the event of an undead uprising, I'll just have to take her with me to fight the zombies." He looks down at the fluffy mess of baby hair, big eyes, and waving fists. "What do you think, Peanut? You and me versus zombies?"

Peanut kicks furiously against his chest, as if she approves.

Kim sighs out a breath. 

"You know, as crazy as it sounds, _sure_. Because if anyone can make it through the undead apocalypse intact it's you."

"Who's making it through the undead apocalypse?" Nick asks. He's not wearing his glasses, Rook can see his real eyes and everything, and he's almost disturbed. Nick shouldn't have real eyes, it's not right, Rook has spent so much time looking at Nick's sunglasses that they sort of became his face in his head. He wonders if that confuses the shit out of Peanut as well.

"Me apparently," Rook tells him.

Nick nods. 

"That makes sense," he agrees.

Rook's not sure whether that's supposed to be a compliment on his many skills, or a judgement on his ability to throw himself into strange and unusual dangers at the drop of a hat, and then miraculously survive them.

"Hey Pumpkin!" Nick leans in and kisses his daughter's cheek, lets her tug at his hair and give a wet, bubbly laugh against his face. "We'll be back before you know it."

"And no swearing," Kim says, finger pointed in Rook's direction. "She's learning words, and you never met a curse you couldn't overuse, seriously, no swearing. We'll be back by midnight. She's sleeping through the night almost all the time now, but you know where the formula is, you know where - you know where everything is, the phone numbers and everything, if anything happens."

Rook nods. Yes, he does, because Kim tells him where everything is every time, and Rook's fairly certain that he could find them all in his sleep at this point.

"Yes, Kim."

Nick gently herds her towards the front door, while she's still reminding him not to let the baby near anything dangerous. As if Rook is going to bring throwing knives and live grenades to babysitting duty. He takes his godfathering duties seriously, thank you very much.

Once they're gone he settles on the couch, sits Peanut on his leg and considers her for a minute, while she wobbles and sticks a fist in her mouth, before eventually pulling it free and dribbling all over his jeans. She seems to find the whole thing deeply fascinating.

"Well, what do you want to do first?"

She nearly falls over backwards trying to look up at him, makes a noise of complaint when he doesn't let her. 

"Hey now, I don't think your parents would approve if you absorbed my reckless streak by osmosis."

She tries to put both hands in her mouth, and Rook chooses to believe that it's a primitive attempt to convey hunger.

Rook warms up her dinner, while Peanut bashes her current favourite toy - a fluffy banana with googly-eyes that Kim had nicknamed 'Toby' - against the floor, talking to herself in her weird, gurgling, nonsense language. Though she gets obviously excited when he picks her up and puts her in her chair. The baby food in the bowl is supposed to be chicken and potatoes, but it doesn't look or smell anything like chicken or potatoes. It smells like shoes and sadness. Peanut, who hasn't developed a refined palate yet, tries to inhale it off the spoon, while simultaneously covering her own hands in the stuff, and then trying to put all three things in her mouth at once, like a starved beast. Though Rook personally thinks she still has better table manners than Hurk.

Once she's clean and fidgety, he lets her lay on her tummy on a blanket and flex awkwardly up and down, like she's doing the world's worst push-ups, occasionally she'll pause to eat some floor, or drag a toy in close. But she seems to be enjoying herself. She has squishy blocks which make animal noises, which she's especially fond of. Rook is forced to listen to ' _quack, quack, quack_ ' and ' _moo_ ' on a constant loop for twenty minutes.

If Peanut's first word is a cow noise, Kim only has herself to blame.

After that it's a quick run from bathtime (where Rook gets half-soaked and smacked in the eye by a plastic duck) to bedtime. Rook sets Peanut back down in her crib, spinning the mobile above her, until the little planes and helicopters look like they're flying. Peanut likes the red helicopter the best, reaching hand clenching and clenching, where it's just out of reach. She's a determined little thing. Though Rook knows that even if she did manage to snag one she would just jam it straight in her mouth, and then gum it furiously until it was no longer flightworthy. But eventually she gives up on her quest to King Kong them towards her, and droopy-eyes her way to sleep.

At twenty past midnight Rook starts to worry. 

It's not like Kim to be late, but it's less like her not to call and tell him she's going to be late. It's not like Nick not to call and check on his daughter either.

At twenty to one, Rook phones the Baxters, who tell him that Nick and Kim left their place at eleven, and Rook believes them. They're good people, he once personally watched Nadine Baxter knock a peggie out cold with a boat oar. He starts phoning around, in case they had car trouble somewhere on the way back. But no one has seen them, no one has heard from them, not one goddamn word.

He keeps phoning, and when he gets in touch with Grace, she promises she'll go out looking, Jess, Hurk and Sharky promise the same.

Reports come in over the next few hours from all of them, but nothing helpful, all they're telling him is the places that Nick and Kim aren't.

"You think this might be a Seed thing?" Grace asks eventually.

It's been five months or so, since the disaster, since Eden's Gate let almost the whole county take shelter in their bunkers while the world tried its best to shake itself to pieces and burn. Bunkers holding half the livestock, gas, building materials and equipment in the county. Joseph's Seed's craziness saved over a thousand people.

Too much of the country is still being rebuilt, and the government has better things to do than try to make sense of reports about a crazy religious cult, using brainwashing and hallucinogenic flowers to control people out in the middle of nowhere. 

Which is the only reason the Seeds didn't go to jail. That and the the fact that the jail got flattened in the disaster. Oh, they're definitely all on some sort of list, they're forbidden from leaving the county, and almost everyone still hates them, but it's hard to go back to fighting one another when you spent three months cramped underground with them sharing tins of peaches. Eden's Gate have been helping to rebuild the town, since Joseph realised very quickly that instead of the expected paradise he's just inherited the same shitty world they had before, only now more of it was broken and on fire. They're still a bunch of weird, crazy, judgemental assholes, they're just less actively violent about it now.

Which is better...probably better, Rook's definitely enjoying the part where he could stop killing people and falling off radio towers like that was his regular job.

"They've been pretty quiet since the disaster." Rook offers. "But I can talk to them."

"You want me to find someone to look after the baby, so you can go out?" Grace asks.

Yes, yes he fucking does, Rook wants that more than anything right now. But he'd promised, he'd _promised_ Kim. Peanut is his responsibility until Kim comes and takes her personally. 

"No, I promised Kim I wouldn't hand her off on someone this time. I promised her I'd stay with her."

Grace gives a little huff of laughter through the phone.

"Can't say I blame her," she admits.

"It's not like I'm enjoying waiting here with her though. I find people, Grace, it's what I do - what I did." He's probably the most over-qualified deputy for miles, now everything seems to be back to almost normal. But Whitehorse has started looking embarrassed every time he gives Rook something mundane to do, like driving a drunk home, as if maybe Rook misses being hounded through the woods by mad cultists, while planes shoot at him. He doesn't, he really doesn't. He just feels like if someone has to do that, then it should probably be him, since he has the most experience.

"I know, Rook."

"It should be me out there," he tells her, because he needs to say it out loud.

"I know," Grace says again. "But you can't see every disaster as your responsibility. There's a whole town full of people, and you've done enough already."

She's right, he knows she's right. Everyone is looking for them, but Rook has never been so worried and frustrated in his whole damn life. 

Peanut wakes up early, alternating between questioning burbles and unhappy whines, until Rook picks her up and pats down her sad, wispy excuse for hair. She scratches helplessly at his shirt and looks miserable, while he feeds her, eventually bashing the bottle away every time he brings it close and complaining with angry little stretching clenches. Rook knows the feeling, he really does.

"I know, Peanut, you're used to your mom's happy face in the morning. But it looks like you got me for a little bit longer."

At dawn, he says to hell with it, he wrestles Peanut into her yellow plane t-shirt and pants, puts her jacket, little boots and rabbit-eared hat on. There's no way that Kim's baby carrier is going to fit him, since she's half the size of him. Also, he doesn't have a car seat for her, because Nick and Kim took the car. But he knows where he might be able to find one.

He finds a scarf on the coat rack, uses it to fix Peanut against him and still leave him the use of both hands. She laughs against his chest and tries to kick, which mostly leaves her knees all scrunched against the lower half of his chest. She makes a long, grunty, straining noise of complaint, until he gently tugs her legs back down.

Then Rook carefully zips his jacket up over her, and tucks Toby the googly-eyed banana in next to her. He takes her feeding schedule from the fridge, folds it and puts it in his pocket, then he puts Peanut's baby stuff in the backseat. Normally he has equipment in the trunk, for any unexpected emergencies, or disgruntled peggies that still sometimes decide they don't like the ceasefire no matter what Joseph has very firmly ordered. But he's apparently an idiot for choosing this week as the one to clean out his trunk. He doesn't like being unarmed when he has no idea what the hell is going on. He doesn't like thinking about being armed while holding a baby. He doesn't like that this is a crisis he's found himself in this morning.

He stares into the early spotting of rain, and the gloomy mist that covers half the county, while Peanut bashes him impatiently on the chin.

Then he sets off to find her parents.


	2. Chapter 2

Rook's aware that he's driving like an old person, but he's also aware that this isn't the safest way to travel with a baby.

He's trying to keep all his attention on the road, but Peanut keeps thrusting a toy banana into his face, making loud noises like she needs him to have an opinion on it _right now_. Though she seems to be happy for the most part, which is something. It's not far to the Cooper's house, and Rook's hoping the fact that Mary Cooper has three teenagers means she has an old car seat he can borrow, or at least something that will be more efficient than this. Some sort of...baby conveyance that he can strap in the back.

When Rook stops in the drive Mary's already outside, she's a tall woman with short red hair, drinking coffee, blue sweater pulled over her hands. Rook doesn't know her that well, but she's a friend of Kim and Nick. Kim talks about her often enough, with a smile and a fondness that Rook chooses to have a little faith in.

He gets out of the car and unwraps Peanut - to her clear relief, if her kicking and excited mouth bubbling is anything to go by.

Mary has a smile for Peanut when she comes over, almost everyone has a smile for Peanut. 

"Hey, sweetie," Mary catches her hand and jiggles it, spreads her fingers until the jiggle becomes a wave. "Look how big you're getting." Peanut knows Mary well enough to laugh and pull at her, gesturing wildly with the other hand, that's still mostly holding Toby.

Mary looks up at Rook, uncertainty pulling her smile at the edges.

"What are you doing all the way out here at nine in the morning, Deputy?"

"No one can find Kim and Nick," Rook says simply. "They didn't come back from visiting Tim and Nadine."

Mary's face pinches in, shoulders dropping.

"Oh, Jesus, is it Peggies again? Do you think -"

"I don't know," Rook admits, because he has no reassurances for her. All he has at the moment are questions. "It's been so quiet, and Joseph has been coming down hard on anyone who makes trouble." That's something of an understatement, and Rook is pretty sure it's Joseph giving the orders, but Jacob making sure that everyone listens.

"Do you need me to take her?" Mary asks, and Rook knows immediately that Mary will if he says yes, that she'll take good care of her until Nick and Kim are found. Because he's not sure why they trust him to look after their only child, when the only thing he's really ever proven is how reckless and irresponsible he is. Peanut will be safe with Mary, and Rook can do what he does best. 

But he made a promise, and Rook's life may have been mostly a mess for the last year, but he's managed not to break one yet.

"Kim made me promise," he tells her. "That I wouldn't leave her somewhere and run off if there was an emergency this time."

Mary's expression is amused.

"It's hard to say no to Kim." Her smile thins out, as if she's stuck imagining possibilities that she wishes she hadn't.

Rook doesn't think about it, refuses to think about it. After the shit they've all been through it wouldn't be anything close to fair.

"Do you have a car seat I could borrow, because I don't have...I don't have anything." He's stupidly unprepared for all of this.

Mary sets down her half finished coffee and nods.

"I have one in the garage, give me just a second."

Rook bounces Peanut, lets her look at Mary's flowers, at the shell and coin wind chime she has hung up, which Rook pokes with his finger until it jingles. Peanut's surprised little inhale makes Rook laugh, and he spends the next few minutes trying to keep her from reaching out and grabbing it. Something she doesn't seem to mind, treating it like it's a game every time Rook catches her fingers.

When Mary reappears with a bulky black seat, Rook hands Peanut over to her while he wrestles the thing into the back of the car.

It has straps.

It has catches.

It's clearly supposed to go in facing the front. He should be able to work this out. This should be simple. Why isn't this simple?

Mary pats him on the hip, with increasing impatience, until he slips out of the car.

"Let me do it, Rook, these things are a pain in the fucking ass if you haven't done them before."

Rook straightens up gratefully, takes Peanut back from her, and she seems immediately compelled to try and push Toby's wet, slightly chewed head up his nose. When Rook leans out of range the wet fabric just gets rubbed repeatedly against his neck, while Peanut's mouth opens and shuts on a sound that seems to require no breath at all.

Mary does something strange and complicated, which involves some snapping and some shifting, and then she's leaning back, taking Peanut and setting her inside it, clipping her securely in, before rubbing Toby on her nose, which makes her laugh and open her arms for him.

"Thank you, Mary."

Mary leans back, folds herself tight into her sweater, and Rook didn't realise how worried she was until he gets a good look at her face.

"Just let me know what's happening. Someone - just tell someone to phone me if there's any news, if you find them."

Rook nods. 

Peanut seems to approve of her new seat, possibly because she gets a view now that isn't the blurred close-up of Rook's neck and shirt buttons. 

Toby gets shaken gently but enthusiastically in Rook's direction while he drives, he can see the waving yellow blur of him in the mirror. Until Peanut flings him against the back of the passenger seat. She keeps waving her empty hand for a second, before making an irritated noise like she thinks someone stole Toby from her.

"Now look what you did," Rook tells her.

Peanut wriggles in her chair and starts grasping at her own legs, like Toby might have gone somewhere she can still reach him. When she works out that he isn't anywhere in range she makes a distressed noise, which turns angry and impatient when she realises Rook isn't doing anything to fix it. A determined screeching that threatens to go on forever.

"Aren't babies supposed to sleep in cars?" Rook wonders out loud. "Isn't that a thing? With the sounds, or the repetitive motion or something." Peanut is officially the loudest passenger he's ever had, and he's had Sharky and Hurk in the back, singing obscene songs that they seem to make up as they go along, if the nonsensical lyrics are anything to go by.

Peanut eventually just starts crying in sheer frustration.

Rook stops the car, gets out, goes round and opens the back. Peanut looks at him, grumpy and miserable, when he sighs and crouches down, fishes the fluffy banana out from under the seat.

When Rook holds him up Peanut reaches her arms out.

"You have to keep him this time," he tells her. "I'm not stopping to pick him up every five minutes."

Peanut takes Toby back, seems torn between shaking him again or putting him in her mouth - and Rook absently dusts his fluffy head because that's probably...not entirely hygienic. But a few germs are probably good for babies, immune systems and things. Can he tie the thing to her with some string or something? Something elastic so every time she throws him he comes back.

And that mental image is more entertaining that it has the right to be.

But Peanut seems happy again for the minute, babbling loud noises at the toy like she's telling it off for disappearing on her.

By the time Rook gets back in the car she's already laughing, bouncing Toby and chewing at his yellow head. Rook should probably clean the inside of his car if it's going to have baby toys thrown around in it. Boomer's been in here, and Boomer likes to roll in questionable things.

He's fixing the mirror, so he can see a little bit more of Peanut while still leaving enough of the road reflected, when he catches sight of something further up the road. The outline of a dark car, just edged in past the treeline. If Rook hadn't been fucking with the mirror he'd never have spotted it.

A year ago he probably wouldn't have thought anything about it.

He starts the car and keeps watching it while he picks up speed. The other car slides out as well, no lights, far enough back that he might not have noticed it if he was only glancing up occasionally. And even if he did he probably would have dismissed it as some random citizen, out early in the mist. But Rook has been through too much not to pay attention to the tension crawling up his spine.

He takes the next turn into the woods, watches the mirror, watches the car roll in after him. Normally he'd do a plate check, but ownership of things has been a fucking mess since the disaster. And Rook's not going to pick a fight today, not while he has Peanut in the car, not when he's completely unarmed.

He cuts through the back of Crazy Stan's house, threads the treeline behind and onto the dirt road down the slope.

Peanut babbles something pleased, still bouncing Toby on her leg, she doesn't seem to mind the uneven ground, though when Rook takes the next sharp turn that leads back to the main road, he sees the fluffy toy stretch out sideways with her arm, and then fall again.

The car behind them is gone, still in the woods somewhere, Rook assumes. He's used to the vehicles following him being an ugly shade of dirty-white, Eden's Gate crosses plastered on the sides, driving up hard and fast. There's something strangely unsettling about the unfamiliar black, crawling slowly along behind him.

Peanut is making an unhappy noise, leaning forward in her seat as far as she can go. But Toby is going to have to wait until they reach town. Rook's still watching the road behind him, when they hit the bridge, and cross it, but it's all clear behind them. 

He reaches the river, where the road narrows, where the trees lean in on either side -

There's another car across the road -

Rook comes to a messy stop.

There are two men standing by it, Rook doesn't recognise them, they're attempting something in the way of casual, as if they might have stopped in the road purely by unfortunate accident. It's not a roadblock, but it is a trap.

Rook squeezes the wheel so hard it creaks, he looks at Peanut, who's still complaining and shaking her empty little hands in the back.

Standing by the car he'd be far enough away that either of them could take a shot at him, and it would all be over. It's not a good range to be in. But this is the sort of set-up meant to draw people in, to let them get close. That's what an ordinary citizen would do, anything else would be suspicious, would force them to improvise. Which means that's what Rook has to do.

So he gets out of the car, smiles like he smiles for Peanut, hears his mouth forming words he's used for a dozen stranded citizens before. Rook may be a tall man, but he's also a deputy, he knows how to look harmless, he knows how to wear that helpful, unthreatening skin that people will let come close, all politeness and offers of help. 

The stranger has no reason to think he's anything other than some random citizen of Hope County. Someone he can saunter over to, all smiles and fake story about a busted axle. But Rook knows how to tell when someone wants something from him, or when someone wants to kill him, he lived with it for months in half the faces he met, all coiling tension and arms that don't quite come to rest, like everything about him is just waiting for the world to tell him when.

Eventually Rook's close enough - though the other man seems to realise it too.

When he reaches down for his gun, Rook steps in and jams a hand down over it, pins it half inside his jacket. Then he drags the man's weight round so he's not going to get shot in the back.

"Get the baby," the man snaps out, close to Rook's ear.

He's left his knife unstrapped, which makes it easy for Rook to reach down and pull it out, swing it up without worrying too much what it's going to hit. It punches through something soft, snaps through something thin, and goes deep before coming to a grisly stop. The man's hold goes slack, and his own weight takes him down.

His friend has made it all the way to the car, jacket unzipped and gun in his hand now. Rook sees him reach for the door, where he can still see Peanut through the glass, waving and distressed. Rook vaults the corner of the car, digs fingers in the man's hair and slams his face so hard into the metal that he leaves a starburst of blood behind. He goes boneless in Rook's grip and hits the dirt. 

He doesn't get up again.

Rook's still trying to process the sudden violence of it all, of how long it's been since he was unexpectedly attacked in the middle of nowhere. His heart is pounding, air whistling out of him - when someone hits him from the side, hard enough to slam him into the door. He loses all his air, head jarred sideways by what has to be the butt of a rifle, hard enough that he goes half way down. He isn't given a chance to steady himself, before the same gun is jammed up under his jaw, and hauled back into his throat, with a force that makes his spine creak, until he gets a hand up, fingers trying to grip the metal.

There were fucking _three_ of them.

Peanut gives a questioning little wail, as if she thinks she's been abandoned. And if this asshole manages to get his gun any higher then she will be, Rook will have failed in his promise to not leave her alone. This stranger will drag her out of the car and take her God knows where, for God knows what reason.

Rook will not let that happen.

He stops trying to pull the gun, lets it shut off his air while he reaches up and gets a grip on the other man's collar, leans forward and drags his whole weight over his shoulder. The man's well trained, he's already turning when he hits the floor, but this time Rook has both the strength and the leverage, which is more than enough. He jams a knee into the other man's throat and bears down, ignores the slam of a fist into his mouth, keeps bearing down until he hears a crunch. The man goes completely limp, hands falling to either side of him. His eyes are open and staring, bleeding red at the edges.

Rook's breathing way harder than he should be, and he hates that living like people aren't trying to kill him at a moment's notice has apparently made him rusty. His mouth tastes like blood, and there's a messy tear in his upper lip that he can feel with his tongue, spatters of red where he's been leaning forward.

He checks the perimeter, takes their weapons and radios, and makes sure the man on the ground by the car is actually dead - he isn't - but Rook has killed people that deserved it far less than this guy, so he doesn't feel guilty about making it final. Once he's certain that no one else is going to jump out of a fucking bush and attack him, he opens the passenger side and crouches in the dirt, until he's eye level with Peanut. Who's now crying in confused unhappiness at all the loud noises and anger.

Rook jiggles her jacket until she stops crying so hard, hiccuping long, unhappy sounds instead. He realises he's leaving little smears of red under his fingers, and stops touching her. He fishes the bag out of the back of the car, and drags out enough wipes to clean off his hands, the lower half of his face, and the front of her jacket.

"Hey, you're ok." He unstraps her and picks her up, bounces her gently until she quiets, hands patting at him like she knows something isn't right. Rook does his best to sound reassuring, tries to make his smile look natural and not forced, and tight, and painful. "You did an awesome job, yes you did. Everything's fine now."

He rights her little bunny-eared hat, tucks Toby in next to her, and just holds her for a minute while he thinks.

Because his worst case scenario for Nick and Kim had been a car accident somewhere out in the woods. But this brings up an even more disturbing possibility. Because he doubts that armed men with military training are just roaming the county looking for babies to steal.

He needs to go to someone that has guns, that has connections, and resources, and a casual attitude to random violence and the occasional bout of gunfire, someone who's not going to freak out if he shows up bleeding and pissed off with a baby.

He knows just the person.


	3. Chapter 3

The Seed Ranch survived the disaster mostly intact. Though Rook supposes that _intact_ is probably the wrong word, since he'd done his best to wreck it before they all had to go underground. But they did a great job making it look like he hadn't crashed a plane into it. It looks just as ugly as it had done the first time he saw it.

Rook knows that John Seed is a violent, unstable, asshole, prone to using Joseph's religious madness to excuse all his personal failings, but you can't spend three months shut up in someone's giant, underground bunker, without either killing them or developing some sort of weird, antagonistic friendship comprised almost entirely of insults, suggestive threats and peach-stealing.

It was a weird three months for everyone.

He knocks on the door.

Peanut is mostly calm, even though it's an hour past when she was supposed to have her breakfast. She's still talking to Toby, who Rook has tucked so tightly between chest and baby that Peanut can't pull him out and throw him anywhere. Though she does briefly try, she seems to have reached the stage where she's worked out how to throw things on purpose. Which he's certain is going to be immense fun for everyone now.

John Seed opens the door himself, holding a mug that's throwing out steam, his shirt and vest are half unbuttoned, and his hair is still wet. It's clear he's not expecting Rook at his door. There's the briefest surprised eyebrow raise at the state of him, and at what he's carrying. 

"Morning," Rook says simply, because his friendly deputy voice seems strangely appropriate. He's not sure he's ever used it on John before.

John considers him for a minute over what smells a lot like coffee, and Rook is jealous, because he's been up for what feels like forever, and he hasn't had any coffee at all yet.

"There are so many things I could say, so many _questions_ I could ask," John says at last. 

Peanut makes a noise and waves. Rook isn't surprised in the slightest, she likes people with beards, and John is a new person with a beard she's never met. Her irrational favouritism may explain why Rook gets unhappily bashed in the face so often. Maybe she's trying to tell him something.

"Nick and Kim are missing, and this morning I killed three strangers who tried to steal my goddaughter," he explains.

John seems to consider that information, while he gets a good look at him, eyes lingering on the messy tear through his lip.

"And that compelled you to bring a Rye to my house," he eventually points out, as if that's somehow his most pressing issue. "I'm not sure that's a forgivable offence."

"She's half a Rye at best," Rook says, which makes John smile almost against his will. "And this one isn't going to punch you."

Peanut chooses that exact moment to bash Rook on the chin impatiently, like she thinks he's wasting time that could be spent paying attention to her, or making her breakfast.

John tips his head pointedly in Rook's direction, smile somehow sharper than before.

"She only punches people she likes," Rook corrects tiredly. "And her tiny little fists do very little damage, so you're probably safe."

John's smile is in danger of becoming something wide and almost genuine, before he finally gives up. He eases the door all the way open, and then heads back inside on bare feet, ignoring them both completely.

Rook follows him inside, drops the baby bag by the door. Peanut is making loud noises already, pushing at Rook's face and kicking like she thinks he's not feeding her on purpose. 

John's leaning against the counter, waiting patiently for an explanation, which he seems to think is due payment for his indulgence. 

"I have to feed the baby, I'll explain, I will, but she's not going to stop fussing until I do."

Peanut seems to take the fact that they're in a kitchen as an encouraging sign that breakfast is imminent. She wriggles, impatient and frustrated. Rook's not quite sure _where_ to feed her. Sitting her on the floor would probably be awkward as shit, and unhygienic, but the chairs in here aren't exactly baby safe. He fetches the scarf that he'd stuffed in the side of the bag, then swivels Peanut around, threads the scarf through the back of the chair so it'll hold her upright and in one position, before cinching it carefully tight.

"Do you have any plastic spoons?" he asks John, who's been hovering curiously behind him, like Rook is performing some sort of interesting experiment.

Rook tries to make sure Peanut isn't going to pull the whole chair over, while she slumps from side to side, face unhappy.

"Yes, I know you're hungry, will you stop trying to escape so I can give you something."

He hears clattering behind him, and John returns holding a long-handled plastic spoon.

"Thanks." Rook takes it and fishes Peanut's breakfast out of his bag. The little jar covered in smiling cartoon bees cheerfully tells him it's delicious oatmeal and honey. Though it looks like someone had already attempted to eat it, only to spit it back out again, as most of them do. The jar is almost always a lie.

Peanut stops making grumbling unhappy noises when she spots the spoon, reaching out and grunting low in her chest.

"We had an early start, so she's late for breakfast," Rook explains. He's probably a bad godfather. No, he's definitely a bad godfather. He has no idea what Kim and Nick were thinking leaving her in his stupid, irresponsible hands.

He sinks to a crouch and jabs the spoon in. Peanut pats at his hand and makes a grab for it. 

"Ah, no, you can't have that," Rook tells her, and he can tell she's thinking about complaining, loudly. But Rook's already stuck food in her mouth. Food is apparently an acceptable offering and she makes a sound that keeps at least sixty percent of it in her mouth, and then almost immediately opens for more. He gives her another spoonful, and decides she's settled enough for him to try and get in touch with someone. The county isn't prepared for this sort of trouble, it's only been half a year since it got bombarded by fucking space rocks. He needs to tell someone, that should have been his priority in the car. He hasn't been thinking like a deputy, he's been thinking like someone on their own against half a county full of madmen.

Rook tries to get his radio out one-handed, without poking Peanut in the eye, but she spots a weakness, tries to steal the spoon and feed herself.

"Shit."

Rook hands a surprised John the jar and the spoon, ignores his protesting noise of uncertainty, and unclips his radio. Clicks the button.

"This is Rook, can I get a weather forecast for today?" It's a phrase he hasn't used for almost half a year, a phrase everyone in the whole county knows actually means 'there's trouble, someone might be listening in, be careful what you broadcast, but I need intel.' He lets go of the button and listens to the static for what feels like minutes but is actually probably closer to thirty seconds.

"Rook, did I hear that right, you want a weather forecast?" Earl's voice is a lazy drawl of curiousity, but Rook knows him well enough to read the tension underneath, like he thinks Rook might have fucked up and sent everyone into a panic for nothing.

"I don't want to get caught in a downpour," Rook says carefully, because he's definitely in trouble here. "I can't see anything in this mist."

There's a pause, and Rook swears he can hear the other man thinking.

He looks over, to where John Seed is carefully spooning yellow goo into Peanut's mouth. He seems to be letting her help, which she's taking advantage of, and is probably the reason he has baby food half way up his hand, and on his vest. She's more falling into the food than letting John feed it to her, but she seems to be enjoying herself so Rook's going to consider it a win.

"Supposed to clear up in a little while," Whitehorse says finally. He's going to pass the message around, and as soon as Rook gets a message to him about what the fuck is going on, he'll help as much as he can. "Before you head in I should think."

"Thanks, Earl," he says and he means it. The Sheriff doesn't get nearly as much credit as he deserves. "I'll be in, though I might be a little late, I'm with my asshole ex."

John makes a rude gesture that Joseph would probably disapprove of. He can sulk all he likes about it, but Rook's pretty sure almost everyone in the county is going to be able to work out exactly who gets that codename.

Rook sets the radio down, pulls out his phone and calls Grace, and he can already hear the texts coming in like popcorn in the background.

"Rook, what the hell's going on?"

He tells her everything, because Grace knows exactly how to relay information and Rook doesn't want to go through this fifteen times. He tells her about the drive, the car following him and the one left as a trap on the main road, how one of the strangers had felt well-trained, and two of them hadn't. He tells her where he left their bodies, and exactly what they wanted from him. But Peanut is safe, Peanut is safe with him, and she's going to stay that way. 

"Shit," she says at last. "Do you think they have Nick and Kim?"

"Yes," Rook says, because as much as he wants to say no, as much as he wants to hope for the best, he can't think of any other reason why they'd want Peanut. Take someone's kid and threaten them, and you could probably make them do anything. Though what the hell this is about, he has no idea. "Grace, can you make sure someone checks in on Mary Cooper, I stopped in with her before they tried to pick me up heading into town." Mary Cooper has three kids, and Rook hates even thinking about being the reason any of these assholes show up at her door.

"Yeah, I'll send Dave and Ethan to keep an eye on her."

"Tell them to be careful, some of these men have training, and there's at least one more car full of them out there somewhere. Kidnappers don't split up into two vehicles and set up traps two miles apart. This feels like something bigger." 

She sighs, and he knows the feeling, because of course it fucking does.

"I'll tell everyone to keep their eyes open, we'll find out who's moved in and where they are, you can count on that," she says. "Rook, are you sure John Seed's house was the best place to take her?" It's clear that Grace thinks this is a bad decision.

"You realise he's listening," Rook points out.

"I don't give a damn," she says immediately. "That asshole knows exactly what I think of him. I don't care how many times Eden's Gate say they've come through the other side of the collapse, to help the world heal, or renew, or any of that shit. You know John's got a vicious streak that goes bone deep, probably still likes to punish people that don't deserve it."

John's definitely listening, spoon tapping on the jar a few more times than necessary. Peanut has noticed John's tattoos, oatmeal covered fingers opening and closing on them like she thinks she can pick them up, and she's making confused noises when this turns out to be impossible. 

"Well, Peanut's a baby so I think she's sin-free, so she's like Eden's Gate kryptonite," Rook reasons.

Rook has John Seed's attention now, and he's definitely wearing an expression that has an opinion on that. But his body is still relaxed, one hand holding Peanut's arm where she's leaning forward, trying to get his attention and the spoon back, other breakfast covered hand waving not even an inch away from his beard. 

" _Babababababa -_ "

John sticks the spoon in her mouth, turning half a word into a goopy noise of satisfaction.

"I want to say your judgement has never been wrong before, but there's a lot of grey area between perfectly executed plan, and barely escaping with our fucking asses on fire. I should know, I've been with you for both," Grace tells him.

Rook remembers, he remembers a lot of things Grace was with him for. 

"I shall try not to set anything on fire," Rook assures her.

"Just be careful," she says firmly, though there's a sigh at the end, as if she understands that Rook will probably manage to make things explode at some point, and all the good intentions in the world won't help. "I know what you're like, and John Seed is not a voice of reason."

Rook's about to tell her that's a piece of information he was perfectly aware of, but she's already gone. Grace does love leaving a scathing pronouncement and then checking off. For a woman who doesn't talk that much she seems weirdly fond of having the last word.

Peanut's more than ready to be cleaned and changed, and Rook realises he should have picked up some clean clothes for her, because now she has oatmeal on her plane t-shirt collar and sleeves. He could probably wash and dry them while she sleeps? He can't go back to the house at the moment, it's too dangerous. He pulls the throw down off the back of John's couch, and lays Peanut down on her stomach. He didn't pick up her animal blocks, or her scrunchy octopus, because he's useless and he's making most of this up as he goes. But she seems happy balanced on her hands, knees and feet, rubbing Toby on the probably expensive wool and making determined noises.

Then Rook finally collapses into John Seed's ugly couch.

John hands him something that steams and smells like coffee, and Rook makes a completely unintentional noise, somewhere between gratitude and sexual satisfaction, takes it from him. Though the first sip rushes heat over the split in his lip, leaves him hissing unhappiness.

"Fuck."

"That's going to scar," John points out, letting the last word drag a little, eyes fixed on the messy wound, as if the thought appeals to him. He's more than a little fucked up, so it probably does.

Rook pokes at it, looks at his finger and finds it smeared newly red.

"Yeah, I figured, I'll add it to the rest."

John sits down next to him, close enough that someone might think they were more than friendly, one leg thrown over the other. He still hasn't put any shoes on, and he turns out to have nice feet - is that a weird thing to notice? Rook's really fucking tired, but he feels like that's a weird thing to notice. He stops looking. John's grimacing down at a long streak of baby food on his vest, which he seems to hold Rook personally responsible for. Eventually he unbuttons it and flips it open.

"So, I'm assuming you didn't drive all the way out here for a moment of quiet reflection, or to confess to murder." John manages to sound disappointed, even though Rook knows he's joking. "That would be something of a constant irritation, surely, what with the amount of complete strangers you manage to turn into mortal enemies." John hums something amused and balances coffee on his upturned knee. "Not that I would object, you understand, if you wanted to come to my house and confess to things which were troubling you. Joseph has been quite clear that we are to only bring in people who belong to us already, who are willing to be pushed, to have their weaknesses and their sins revealed to them."

John leans back, teeth briefly meeting in something that looks a lot like a grimace. 

"Everyone else we leave adrift, to find their own way, or not," he finishes.

"And that bothers you, doesn't it?" Rook asks.

John breathes out a laugh, only half amused, something strung taut under the skin. He doesn't answer, but he doesn't have to.

"I would have thought you'd hate complete strangers trying to catch me," Rook offers over his coffee, which is still painful but better than anything he's drunk in days. "After all the time and effort you, and Joseph, and Jacob, and Faith put in."

"It does rankle a little," John offers grudgingly. "Though we didn't want to kill you, we wanted to save you, to make you one of us, to have you walk the path with us. We thought that your wilful and continued refusal to listen was a test, that we were meant to convince you, to win your loyalty. But when that seemed impossible - well, killing you seemed inevitable." This isn't the first time Rook's heard this from John, but the explanation seems to swing from honest, to vindictive, to heavy with religious conviction, depending on John's mood. "Though in the end Joseph's vision took us all somewhere we did not expect, prepared us for more than we thought, a different sort of new beginning." John's mouth pulls sideways, and Rook suspects he's still not sure what he's supposed to be doing. Rook knows that feeling better than most.

"You tried to drown me the first time we met?" Rook points out, because he feels like he has to dispute the 'not wanting him dead to begin with,' part of that sometimes rose-tinted memory. He still remembers being shoved underwater while mostly high. He still remembers John's disappointed face when Joseph made him stop drowning him. Rook has no idea why he's almost friends with a man who was once that disappointed to be told to stop drowning him. 

"I was sometimes...impatient and overly enthusiastic, in the tasks Joseph gave me." John says. "I can see how you might not have been given the best first impression of Eden's Gate, and I'll take some responsibility for that. I'd be more than happy to perform a new baptism, you only have to ask." John smiles at him, something that rolls past friendly and into familiar.

Rook doesn't want a new baptism, he didn't want the first one.

"I don't want a new baptism," he complains, but then sighs when he realises what he does need. "But I may need your help here," he admits. 

John doesn't say anything for a long, frustrating minute. He doesn't give anything in the way of a reaction, he just smiles and drinks his coffee.

"John -"

"No, no," John says quietly, one hand lifted in his direction like he wants to crush it over his mouth. "Don't speak yet, I'm still enjoying this."

Rook would tell him not to be an asshole but he knows better. He finishes his own coffee and waits.

"You're going to let me tattoo you in exchange," John decides at last, smile wide and bright. He draws out the words with an enthusiasm that should be worrying. As if it's something he's just thought of, and not something he's been thinking about for a while.

"You did already," Rook points out. "I remember shooting you out of the sky for it. I was going to shoot you when your parachute hit the ground as well, but I had more pressing concerns."

John acknowledges the truth of that with a long hum of agreement, like the giant explosions of noise and force were an amusing memory they shared, rather than a terrifying precursor to a natural disaster that changed the landscape of the country irrevocably. Rook remembers the fire and dust that came after, remembers trying to pull, or to push, as many people as he could underground, where Eden's Gate had prepared. Until it was just him, just him and John Seed's insistent pulling hands.

"I want to give you something else," John continues. "Something you won't struggle under, I'm still annoyed that you pulled on the 'H,' it's untidy, and it vexes me." John's finger briefly jabs at the middle of Rook's chest. Where _Wrath_ still lays jagged and accusing on his skin.

Rook really doesn't need another terrible, religious-themed tattoo to go with the rest of his bad decisions. Because that's what it's almost certainly going to be. He looks over, to where Peanut is bouncing on her elbows, singing to herself, in a key she seems to have invented all on her own. He's done stupider things for people he cares about, and he doesn't have much of a choice.

"I decide the size and where it goes," he demands, because he's not an idiot.

"Done," John says immediately, which seems far too easy, and leaves Rook feeling like he'd lost a fight he didn't even know he was having.

Peanut gives a long, unhappy grumble, where she's now balanced just on her stomach, arms and legs waving awkwardly.

"What's she doing?" John asks curiously.

"Practicing her skydiving technique by the look of it," Rook says.

Peanut has almost worked out how to crawl. She still seems confused about how to get her knees under her and moving. Every attempt ends in her slowly tipping forward, and either headbutting the floor or accomplishing some sort of diagonal roll off into empty space.

Rook's pretty sure she'll get there eventually though.

When Peanut goes down for her afternoon nap, Rook crashes as well.

He might as well be dead for an hour and ten minutes, for all he remembers about it. Which he's not going to feel guilty about, because it was a very long night and then three men tried to steal his goddaughter and kill him. And if anyone had told him six months ago that he would sleep like the dead on John Seed's couch, while the other man ate a sandwich and sketched tattoos four feet away, Rook would have arrested them for being crazy in public.

But there you go.


	4. Chapter 4

When Rook wakes up, his leg has gone half numb, and his mouth feels bruised and too tight. Peanut's making low, complaining noises that are going to be crying in about thirty four seconds. He pushes himself up out of the couch, makes his legs work well enough to stumble over to the hasty stack of cushions and rolled up blankets, that he'd constructed around her.

She's looking up at him with the grouchiest face he's ever seen, hands waving like she's angry that he's so far away, and she can't make her displeasure known all over his face. Rook thinks he probably deserves that, so he leans down and picks her up, lets her sway in close. But she seems to change her mind about taking her irritation out on him, once she's flopped against his chest and neck. She rubs her face on him and makes unhappy noises instead, fingers scratching and scratching at his t-shirt before finally gripping it tight and sighing into him.

"You're such a grumpy napper," Rook tells her quietly. She bumps her head against his cheek in protest, and makes noises that leave it dribble-wet. 

Rook doesn't have enough hands, and he wavers over his decision for half a minute, before deciding to just go with it. He heads for the table, pushes John's book out of the way, and sets Peanut down in his confused, protesting hands. John looks at him like Rook has just handed him a sack of live scorpions, hands awkwardly shutting when Peanut starts to slowly fall into him.

"What are you doing? Where are you going? I in no way agree to this, or condone it. Rook, get back here."

"She's hungry," Rook tells him, because he's sleep-deprived and that was too many questions. He fishes in Peanut's bag for bottles and formula. When he'd left the house he'd done his best to make a mental checklist of everything she might need, but the bag feels accusingly light, and he knows he's probably forgotten something important. Rook hadn't expected to not be able to go back to Nick's house. He hadn't expected any of this, though he probably should have done.

"What am I supposed to do with her?" John says.

"Try not to be a psychopath for five minutes, while I make her a bottle," Rook tells him. "And don't let her eat your buttons."

John looks down, and discovers that Peanut has fallen face first into his vest, spreading dribble and trying to claim one of the buttons with whichever body part can pry it off first.

When Rook comes back from John's confusing, fancy kitchen with her six o'clock bottle - which is half an hour early, fire him, he doesn't care - he finds the man still holding Peanut on his lap, though away from his vest now, knee moving almost absently. Peanut is alternating between jamming her fist in her mouth and then throwing it out far enough to scratch at his wrist, making loud ' _bababa_ ' noises. 

Rook stops for a moment to watch, because he knows her well enough to recognise the fact that she wants to play, and she's checking to see if this new person will play with her. John just looks somewhere between confused and worried, like he's afraid Peanut might spontaneously fall out of his hands, or something equally dramatic. When John spots Rook his knee stops moving. He offers Peanut up with a weird, constipated sort of desperation. Then scowls when Rook laughs at him.

"You did great, thanks," Rook tells him. Then decides the couch is fine, sinks into the cushions and lets Peanut slump into whichever position she wants to be fed in. Before she grabs for the bottle, claims it, and then bashes it joyfully with both hands while she drinks. 

After she's done Rook lets her sit next to him on the couch, propped up by cushions, Toby resting in her lap. She's already dirty enough to make him feel guilty. How do babies get so dirty, they barely do anything?

"John, do you own a t-shirt?"

John gives him an odd look.

"Yes, why?" So much suspicion there.

"Because my goddaughter is covered in oatmeal and dribble," he points out. "And I would like to wash the one outfit she has, since I didn't think to pack any others."

John sighs and heads upstairs, while Rook tips Peanut forward and wrestles her little yellow outfit off. She babbles and waves her hands happily, because she clearly thinks it's bubbles and ducky time. Which makes Rook feel worse, because he knows there's stuff he's missing, stuff he's doing late, and stuff he's forgetting completely.

"You can have a bath tomorrow," he tells her. "I know it's on your schedule, and I know that your mom is very strict about your schedule, but I am a disaster, so you'll have to forgive me." 

John reappears next to him and hands him something that looks slippery and expensive. It's also a deep green, which is somehow surprising. Rook takes it and wrestles Peanut into it. She almost disappears, until he ties a makeshift knot in the front, which will probably ruin it completely, but Rook can always buy the man another one, no matter how stupidly expensive it is. Peanut seems happy with Rook's fashion choices, which is all that matters.

John just looks amused at his many failures, which Rook suspects is going to become a theme.

He puts Peanut's outfit in to wash, and then after a pause, his own t-shirt and shirt, before heading back out and collapsing on the couch.

"I don't think I have anything that would fit you," John says quietly, and Rook knows he's looking at the tattoo he left, at the scars he left too, in a roundabout sort of way, but probably doesn't know so well. 

"I'm sure I'll survive," Rook tells him.

John mutters something under his breath, too low to catch.

Rook puts Peanut on the floor again, because apparently all the hard work is good for her muscles, at least that's what he remembers Kim telling him. Though he worries he's not talking to her enough, she's learning to talk too, and Kim and Nick talk to her all the time. Rook's company is going to stunt her growth. 

He takes out his phone, replies to as many messages as he can. Grace has been giving regular updates, and it turns out people have been noticing strangers around Hope County in the last week, but there's barely any information about them. Rook suspects they've all gotten a little complacent about ignoring things that aren't yelling religious judgements or actively trying to shoot at people. They should probably look into doing something about that, at some point. Jess has tracked them to several spots in the woods, more heavily armed than expected. No sign of Kim and Nick. Rook sets up a meeting for tomorrow, one they can all get to, John's agreed to supply more manpower to go with the others, and to watch the house, and the sky. And Rook knows his people are professional enough to work with a group of Peggies and ex-Peggies without anything too explosive happening. Probably? 

John tells him to help himself to anything in the kitchen, and Rook does, because he's fucking starving. He sits on the couch, watching Peanut make more attempts at crawling, and eats sandwiches that are so full the bread keeps letting things escape. John sits next to him and steals one of them, because clearly he's a lazy dick who can't make his own food.

John has his own ideas about what to do tomorrow, some of them sensible but unworkable, some of them unreasonably violent. John Seed doesn't take criticism very well, but he doesn't look like he wants to stab Rook for his comments any more, which feels like personal growth. Rook lets him have the last sandwich. He thinks they might be friends, some sort of friends, and he's honestly not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Eventually Peanut's falling asleep on her toys, and Rook realises that it's past her bedtime. Fuck, it's past Rook's bedtime too, by about twenty four hours.

He fixes the bed he made for her, out of armchair cushions, blankets and pieces of furniture, packs it in so she can't roll off somewhere in the night, then sets her in it, half a bottle held lazily in one hand, while she slips between dozing and drinking, dozing and drinking, before the bottle falls completely out of her mouth.

John tells him he has a spare room upstairs, he can bring Peanut. The couch is too short for him, and not meant for sleeping. But Rook insists that the couch is fine, he's slept in far worse places.

The couch is fine.

He wakes up at two in the morning to Peanut crying, and he forces himself to get up and make her half a bottle, then feed it to her while half asleep, before setting her back down and then collapsing on the sofa again.

When he wakes up the second time it's quiet, light just breaking through the darkness, and he discovers someone had tossed the blanket over him. Rook is really going to have to take a good look at the fact that he can apparently now sleep through John Seed wandering around and touching him in the middle of the night. He has no idea what happened to all his self-preservation skills. 

He checks Peanut, but she's still sleeping, arms thrown up over her head.

He fishes his clothes out of the wash and pulls them on, heads for the kitchen, where he finds John leaning against the counter in the half light, fully dressed. He smells like coffee, and judging by the number of mugs he has, he's made Rook coffee too. He must have heard him stumbling around.

"You're my favourite person," Rook tells him.

John goes weirdly still, but then laughs and pushes the mug gently in his direction.

-

Not so long ago, Rook had spent two months living under constant threat of violence, expecting people to shoot at him wherever he went. So when he lifts the mug, only for his entire body to suddenly and unexpectedly crawl with tension, for no reason that he can quite make sense of, he doesn't ignore it.

He grabs the top of John's vest and hauls him in hard enough to slam them both into the wall, right before half the counter smashes apart behind them when a bullet rips through it.

John makes a breathy noise against the side of his face, when he realises that Rook just saved his life. But whoever's shooting seems to take offence at Rook stealing their target. Because they're not even aiming at anything now, and Rook is pretty sure this is what Kim meant when she worried about Peanut being in unsafe environments.

"Whoever that is, I'm going to fucking kill them," John bites out.

"Get in line," Rook snaps, and hits the floor, drags himself over to the window.

John crawls half over his legs, an angular mess of weight, and Rook can't even object because John's flipping open a kitchen cabinet and sliding a gun into Rook's outstretched hand.

Rook pushes himself upright, tries to get a look at how many men there are outside, and how far away. So he can decide if he needs to kill them before he goes and checks on Peanut, or whether he can duck into the back and make sure she's safe first. Two in the bushes, two by the second building, three by the car, all coming closer.

He ducks back down. Killing them it is. 

He balances an arm on the counter, gets the two in the bushes before they all split apart and head for cover. Then he waits a beat, for one of the men by the second building to get nosy, removes him from the field as well. The three men by the car are moving round, getting ready to run for the house.

Rook isn't sure if John has another clip for the gun he's holding.

"Where do you keep your knives?" Rook asks.

John reaches up and pulls a drawer out of the cabinet. It lands next to them both with a crash, spilling cutlery everywhere. Which includes some beautifully sharp pieces of silver that look like they were designed to carve up a goddamn unicorn.

"Oooh, fancy," Rook says. Before leaning up out of the window and throwing one hard enough to impale one of the running men through the throat. He cants sideways, slams into the wooden fence, and disappears from view. The two men running in formation with him veer apart to take cover behind the trucks outside. Rook would kill for a rocket launcher right about now.

"Being on the same side as you, is a unique experience," John admits.

Rook encourages him to slide in closer when a bullet cracks a cabinet next to him. 

"I'm starting to understand why the Resistance just threw you at every problem we created." John sounds somewhere between amused, impressed, and some strange third option which is probably inappropriate when there's so much imminent peril. John used to be the imminent peril that Rook was in regularly, so this is all a little confusing, truth be told.

"You never tried that hard to put me down," Rook points out. 

"Never tried," John spits, turning to glare at him. "Never tried, do you have any idea the manpower we threw at you, and then subsequently lost. The heavy weaponry you completely destroyed."

Rook climbs half over John, so he can take out the two men he hadn't noticed, trying to sidle round the back of the ranch.

"I'm definitely missing your anti-aircraft gun on the roof right now," he admits.

"Well, that's what you get for crashing a plane into it," John grumbles, reloading Rook's gun while he throws an expensive butcher's knife through a truck window. Rook takes the gun back from him once he's done, leans up in John's lap, and lets John hold him steady by his belt, so he can peg the last asshole behind the truck in the ankle, and then in the chest when he falls.

John mutters something he doesn't catch, fingers digging in.

Rook can hear a snapped out command and a hiss of loud static. He's pretty sure the last man by the car is radioing for back-up. Which may be very bad for the three of them. 

"Do you have another gun?"

John clicks his tongue.

"I remember the Sheriff's department being very insistent about not letting Eden's Gate members run around with heavy weaponry again."

"Right," Rook agrees, he remembers drafting the paperwork for that. But they're all Seeds, and Rook thinks he knows them pretty well by now. "But I also know that you never met a rule you wouldn't break, and that Jacob would have hidden weapons all round your house. Because he's a giant, paranoid bastard that loves his little brother."

John laughs because it's true, all of it.

"There's an assault rifle under the coat rack in the hall," he says with a smile.

"Right, and I'm pretty sure they have friends coming, so I'm going to get it and meet you in the other room, make sure Peanut's ok."

Rook gives him a shove, while he slips from broken cabinet to broken cabinet towards the hall. There is indeed an assault rifle under the coat rack, and it's as nice as any that Rook can remember stealing off a dead body. He clicks it to single shot and heads back through John's stupidly large and hard to defend house.

When he finds John he discovers that he's folded two bulletproof vests either side of Peanut's couch bed. Which Rook is so happy about that he literally cannot speak for several seconds. He could fucking _kiss_ him.

"You," Rook points at him. "You are the best co-babysitter ever."

John looks briefly surprised, before his mouth stretches in a smile.

Rook folds himself over the back of the mini-bed, peers down at his favourite small person. Peanut's still mostly asleep, and Rook has no idea how, because they're surrounded by angry men with guns who want to kill them. But he's going to take what he can get at this point.

Rook passes the pistol to John, who checks to see how much ammunition Rook has left him, and then glares pointedly.

"Think of it as encouragement not to miss," Rook tells him.

Someone on the other end of the radio must have been in range, because it's a disappointingly short amount of time before Rook hears wood breaking, as the front door gets kicked in. Which is too close to Peanut for Rook's liking. He puts three bullets in the man that appears round the corner just to make sure. Then he kicks the couch over and shoves it up against the window, pulls John down with him. And this all feels horribly familiar, but at least this is something Rook remembers how to do.

The crackling jump of static makes them both turn and look. The dead body just inside the ranch was holding a radio, though it's tumbled over the man's slack fingers now.

" _How hard can it be to take one fucking baby from a couple of idiot locals_."

"Well now I'm just insulted." John stretches a leg out, hooks the toe of his boot around the radio and drags it in.

"Don't talk to him," Rook says firmly, because he knows what John is like. He remembers what John is like, and that isn't ending well for anyone. "You're just going to piss each other off, and this asshole doesn't deserve the attention."

"You always made time to talk to us," John points out. 

"Like I had a choice, honestly you four just fucking waffled on for hours, I started worrying that you were sleeping in shifts so you could all take turns driving me insane. If you hadn't been gunning so hard for my conversion or death I probably would have been flattered."

John laughs and tips in close.

" _Rook_ , you should absolutely have been flattered, you were important. As you proved when you led the people to a safety that we provided, as you were always meant to."

One of the bullets from outside makes it through the couch and smashes a clock across the room.

"Stop adding me to prophecies after the fact," Rook complains. "It's cheating."

"I'm just repeating what Joseph believes to be true," John says smoothly. "You were always meant to be here, you were always meant to resist us, and look at where it's brought us."

"Yes, we're being shot at together," Rook says fiercely. "I hope it makes you happy."

It's briefly too loud to talk, and Rook finds himself bent low, forehead pressed briefly against John's, hoping like fucking hell that neither of them get punctured. Eventually it stops, because apparently all the idiots outside are reloading together. Rook slides up and leaves two messy bodies as punishment for improper reloading and cover technique. Before dropping back down.

"I guess Hope County's charming asshole quota had already been filled, so instead they sent us this baby-stealing asshole," Rook grumbles.

John rolls his head sideways and laughs.

"Did you just call me charming?"

"I think I called you an asshole," Rook corrects. But he doesn't take it back, because John is absolutely the most charming man who'll ever stab you in the throat.

John's still laughing, which is an inappropriate reaction to be having when half the room is being shredded by bullets behind them.

Peanut makes a noise, muffled but audible, that suggests she's finally decided she's not going to sleep through this obvious fucking disaster that's happening around her. And the sound of her sad questioning whines from across the room forces Rook to kneel up and shoot someone in the head, because he has responsibilities here which the world is making it very difficult to deal with. Most of the newcomers are now in proper cover. Rook liked it better when they were stupid and badly trained, stupid, badly trained people were so much easier to deal with. 

He's pretty sure the one behind the truck, with a half-crouched ring of soldiers guarding him, is the one currently in charge. Rook can only see him in brief flashes, since he's smart enough not to stick his head out. Seriously, Rook would give his left arm for a discarded rocket launcher right about now, or a stick of dynamite. Boomer would bring him a stick of dynamite, but he'd left him with Mary May when he went to Nick's.

The man in charge seems to think the brief period that isn't filled with gunfire means that Rook's interested in negotiation.

"I have more than a dozen well-armed men with me, give us the baby and you won't -"

Rook never gets to find out what he won't be doing, because the man's entire head comes apart across the side of the truck. 

"Fucking amateurs," Jacob Seed says through the radio.


	5. Chapter 5

It doesn't take Jacob very long to work his way through the second group of reinforcements, and he does it while slowly heading towards the ranch, judging by the way all the gunfire and yelling gradually comes closer. John's laughing where he's still pressed against Rook's shoulder, and it's hard not to pick up on the vindictive satisfaction in it. 

"Did you call your brother?" Rook asks curiously. He doesn't remember a moment where John would have had time to do that, but he was distracted for most of it.

"No," John admits. "Though I've never underestimated his ability to know what's going on, and, if necessary, make himself a part of it."

Rook's not entirely sure that adding Jacob Seed to anything is ever a good solution. Though he isn't going to argue that the man isn't also terrifying and effective at whatever he puts his mind to. Rook had spent a few months being that thing, and he hadn't enjoyed it at all. Not being the focus of Jacob's attention for a change leaves him free to witness it from the outside, but that just makes him wonder how he ever made it out alive. 

Jacob really is disturbingly efficient in his purpose, even if he is being uncharacteristically quiet through the radio, all Rook can hear are the panicked voices of the men outside, making bad decisions and giving away their positions. Rook remembers Jacob being far more aggressive in his constant need to tell you how weak you were, about people who played at being soldiers. A grating and constant level of threat, that had made him the most unnerving Seed to go up against, every fucking time. And that was before all the brainwashing and dog cages. Jacob has the perfect excuse outside, to indulge his obvious need to demean and terrify, and yet there's nothing from him but the occasional crack of his rifle. 

Rook can't help but find that annoying.

"What," he offers. "No complaints about how they're weak, playing at being something they're not, about how they deserve to die?"

John takes the radio back from him and tosses it into the second armchair, like they have no further use for it. 

"I don't think Jacob considers them worth special treatment," he says with a laugh.

Which brings all of Rook's thoughts to a messy halt.

" _Special treatment_ ," he says slowly. "My time in Jacob's territory can be called many things, but I'm not sure 'special treatment' is one of them." Rook still has a messy scar on his wrist from where one of Jacob's judges tried to chew his arm off.

John catches his irritated expression, and seems to find it deeply amusing.

"If he hadn't thought you were worth testing, he would have tried much harder to kill you. And you impressed him, you surprised him, no matter how far he pushed you, how much he threw at you, you kept coming back, you kept getting up and breaking things - and I knew that feeling intimately - my brother likes you, almost against his will."

Rook thinks that's supposed to make him feel better. But he can't help but smart at that hastily thrown out piece of information, because, hell, he'd love to know how Jacob treats people that he _doesn't_ like.

It's almost quiet outside now, Rook wonders if he should actually do anything, try to shoot anyone. But John has relaxed next to him, quietly complaining about the state of his house, and that Rook is once again mostly to blame for its current devastation. It's clear John has absolute faith in his brother's ability to reach them.

Rook only has to shoot one more man, and that's only because he panics and tries to retreat to the house.

The next shadow in the doorway that he points his gun at turns out to be Jacob Seed himself, and even in the early light it would be hard to mistake him for anyone else. He fills the space, all broad lines, hard curves and stillness. Rook has only seen the man a few times since the disaster, always quietly looming, taut with potential energy, as if sliding back into what could be considered a normal life was difficult for him most of all.

He's not even breathing hard, perfectly serene in his blunt object sort of way. There's not a hair, or a line of clothing out of place. Where Rook suspects he looks exactly like he's been sliding around on the floor. 

Jacob stares at him, eyeing Rook's gun and radiating a quiet sort of displeasure that it's difficult for Rook not to take personally, but he puts his gun down anyway. Since they're not technically enemies any more. It takes Jacob slightly longer to set his own rifle on what's left of the kitchen table. Rook doesn't fail to notice that his right hand is bloody at the fingers, which suggests at least some of his assistance was the up close and personal variety.

John's already off the floor and heading for his brother, with a smile and the drawn-out warmth of his name, lifting his hands for the weight of Jacob's elbows, pulling him in with a laugh, like he hasn't seen him for days.

Rook misses their greeting, misses the opportunity to see whether Jacob bends to his brother's enthusiasm or remains still underneath it. He's too busy leaning into Peanut's bed, catching at her waving hands, and smiling relief at her dishevelled hair and puffy cheeks.

"Hey, did you have a nice sleep?" He picks her up, mindful that he is actually pretty dirty from sliding around on the kitchen floor. She's still floppy and warm where she sways and bumps against him. T-shirt all bunched around her. "I'm sorry it was so loud, but it's over now. You were ever so good for not crying."

She gives a quick yawn, and then babbles something curious.

"I know, there are so many new people around." He changes her diaper on the couch, then takes her to the kitchen where John and Jacob are still talking around the table. Jacob fills the space with a sort of strange gravity, always wherever you looked, no matter which way you turned. Some people would protest it was because he was tall and solid, and just filled the space. They'd be right, but they'd also be wrong. Because Joseph has the same talent, to always be there, to always be the thing you were looking at, even if you weren't actually looking at him.

"Why am I not surprised that you're tangled up in this," Jacob says simply. And his voice is a familiar drag of roughness and judgement that Rook hasn't heard for months. He should probably object to the insinuation that he brings disaster everywhere he goes, but he thinks it's probably fair. Jacob's eyes drop pointedly. "The baby?"

Peanut seems to notice the attention and chews a hand before waving it happily in Jacob's direction. Rook's starting to think she might not be the best judge of character. 

"Nick Rye's," John says, mouth curled in distaste.

Jacob seems to share his opinion, though his face doesn't show it as much. 

"Hnh, well let's hope she takes after her mother."

Kim, for all her opinions and brutal honesty, has never managed to piss people off half as much as Nick does. Rook isn't surprised that Jacob can't find anything bad to say about her.

Rook looks from the baby bag to the baby and sighs, leaning into the table and holding Peanut over John's lap. John gives him an odd look, but takes her, and Peanut doesn't object to the change of view, just flops against John's shoulder with a little sigh, hand immediately lifting to poke at his beard with tiny fingers.

Jacob makes a strange, drawn-in noise, eyebrows lifting, and Rook thinks that's the most surprised he's ever seen him. He gets the impression Jacob isn't surprised very often.

Rook makes a bottle, while Peanut tells John about her night in loud, wavering babbles, and he doesn't seem to know whether to talk to her or to Jacob, who still looks strangely fascinated. Eventually he settles for explaining Rook and Peanut's presence in his house. Which he makes a longer story of than Rook would have done, and he wasn't the one that was there for all of it. John has a good memory though, because he gets all of it right. 

Peanut notices then that Rook has a bottle and reaches for him excitably.

"It's still too hot, stop fidgeting," he tells her. She's mostly falling out of John's shirt, but Rook will change her after breakfast, or she'll just get messy again.

He wanders out into the hall, shaking the bottle gently. He can hear John and Jacob talking quietly behind him, so he drags his phone out and updates Grace, and Earl, replies to seven worried text messages, and one obscene joke about him shacking up with John Seed, because he knows Hurk worries too, even when he has trouble communicating like a person.

Rook has the horrible feeling this is going to get a lot messier before it ends. Hope County has taught him to trust his instincts, and Rook does, but it doesn't mean he doesn't also wish they were occasionally wrong.

He heads back to the kitchen, takes Peanut and lets her drink, while John makes coffee for everyone who isn't a baby. Eventually though, he's left eyeing Jacob Seed over the table. Rook's tense almost against his will, filled uncomfortably with the strange feeling that they stopped in the middle of a fight, and have been waiting for months to pick it up again, only to realise they've left it too long, that it's all done, anger already gone messy and confused at the edges. And now they're stuck with whatever's left, still prickly with past grievances.

Jacob drinks his coffee in slow mouthfuls that Rook suspects burn all the way down, but he doesn't seem to care. Rook's more careful with his, keeping it out of Peanut's reach.

Peanut is completely immune to the tension strained to breaking between them. She's excitable and impatient to be played with, or given things to do after her sleep and her first breakfast, and she's currently slapping her hands on the table and making happy noises, occasionally reaching over to see how far she is away from Jacob's spread fingers, just in case he's willing to play with her.

John reappears, kicking an unbroken chair out for himself - and Peanut waves and makes noises, pinching her fingers in his direction now, until he relents and catches her hand. Rook suspects Peanut thinks she's made a friend.

John's presence doesn't exactly dissipate the tension, but it does crumple it a little, giving both Rook and Jacob something else to concentrate on that isn't each other.

"Well, this is a fortuitous turn of events," John says pleasantly, smiling wide and genuine, like he couldn't be happier at the thought of them all around a table discussing the fact that they just killed a bunch of people. Rook remembers when he had normal friends, friends you'd have a drink with, talk about work to, complain about your lack of a love life with. God, he's not sure he even remembers what that was like any more.

"Rook has something of a problem, which I have agreed to help him with, and I think you might appreciate the chance to stretch your legs as well. We could -"

"No," Rook says simply.

John looks surprised, Jacob doesn't.

Rook doesn't want Jacob's help, he doesn't want to owe Jacob anything. Because he still remembers all of it. When Jacob locked him in a cage, and made Rook his puppet, took away his control and sent him off to do his bidding. He also made him eat dogfood, but Rook has been told to stop holding weird grudges, when there are perfectly understandable ones instead. 

Peanut makes a grumpy noise, and Rook realises he's squeezing her without meaning to. He relaxes his grip and bounces her gently in apology. 

"Rook, this is perfect," John says, frowning like he's disappointed that Rook is going to be difficult. Rook can't help but notice now they're sat close together, that somehow John Seed has managed to escape their unexpected firefight with barely a smudge of dirt on him. "Jacob has men all through the woods, not just the mountains. He has radio towers set up, surveillance."

"I don't want to rely on Jacob for help," Rook says quietly. Because the man always appreciated brutal honesty. And he knows it's probably against his best interests at this point, but he doesn't trust Jacob.

"You're letting _me_ help," John says pointedly.

Rook opens his mouth to protest that John is different. But it occurs to him almost immediately that if you put non-consensual tattooing and mutilation on one side of a scale, and brainwashing and dogfood on the other, they're probably coming up about equal. If Rook had ended up in Jacob's bunker instead, this might have been a very different conversation around a table. A conversation about John Seed's unpredictability, of his temper and his history of selfish, destructive violence. 

God, why does Rook make so many terrible friends? Why can't normal things happen to him?

"When you've finished wasting time dwelling on your personal feelings, you can look at this." Jacob slips a crumpled square of paper out of his pocket and unfolds it wide, lays it on John's rickety kitchen table.

Rook knows how to read a map well enough. Jacob has been keeping track of all the unknowns who enter the county, where they stay and where they go, and there are an awful lot of ringed sections, places you can keep a lot of men without making it obvious, places you can hide if necessary, in the woods, the old mill, the mine in the mountains. They've been moving in slow, staggered sweeps.

"They're looking for something," Rook realises. He's surprised enough that he leans in, all but forgetting his earlier protests about Jacob's help being unwanted, and bringing Peanut in range of the map, which she pats her dribbly hands on and scrunches gently. 

Jacob grunts agreement.

"Our situation in Hope County is still not exactly friendly." Jacob gives him a pointed look there, as if Rook himself has just made that perfectly clear. "So the locals are reluctant to talk to me. I've been moving as slowly and unobtrusively as I can, I've bagged a few of them, asked them questions. But the soldiers and the hired help don't know anything. They all report to their group leader, but they don't know what they're here for either. Though whatever it is they want it badly enough to throw manpower and resources at it. Which don't come cheap now. They haven't made any pushes into populated areas yet, but it's only a matter of time, and I don't have the manpower, or the equipment that I used to."

Peanut slowly dribbles on the map, until Rook notices and tucks her back against his shoulder.

"How long have they been here?" he asks Jacob, because this isn't the sort of operation you can just throw somewhere without drawing a lot of attention. This is something you move in quietly, piece by piece.

"Five days," Jacob says, and Rook has no reason to question any of his information. "They're still slowly moving equipment in."

Five days, they've been in the county five days, and no one spotted them. But that also means they were here at least four days before Nick and Kim disappeared. They're looking for something, and they've taken Kim and Nick. Do they think they know something about what they're looking for?

"Do they take hostages?" Rook asks.

Jacob gives him a strange look, then looks at Peanut, who's waving at him like she wants to get her fingers in his beard. Rook pulls her hand down. 

"No," he says simply, and Rook knows exactly what he's thinking. No, they don't take hostages. "They didn't seem to have any interest in hostages, they mostly avoid civilians so far, except occasionally trying to pass as one. Mostly unconvincingly."

The population of Hope County wasn't as large as it used to be, what with the murderous cult, and the asteroids. New people still tend to stand out. Though they've had a few hundred people show up since the disaster, families of people who lived here, or used to, and survivors from neighbouring counties that heard the town had survived almost intact. A few of them had arrived with questionable intentions, but Rook and his friends had put that down pretty fucking quickly, with Joseph's help. Too wary of using up what little good will Eden's Gate had built up since they sheltered the town underground.

"Why did they take the pilot?" Jacob asks, and it takes Rook a second to work out that he means Nick.

Rook shakes his head.

"I don't know, but they've been fairly insistent about rounding out the set." Rook stops when Peanut bangs her hands on the table, and insists on talking to everyone in a very loud voice, before cramming both hands in her mouth. "Though what they want from him that they'd use Peanut for coercion, I don't know."

"Well that would explain your involvement," Jacob says carefully, then frowns. "Peanut isn't actually her name?" There's an unhappy tip to his mouth, as if he thinks he's been working on bad intel for months.

"No," John offers, when Rook just sighs. "But it's so awkward when an apocalypse happens, and people start naming their babies after you." He looks at Rook pointedly.

Jacob Seed looks genuinely amused, which is something Rook was certain he was never going to see. It makes him look more like a real person, and less like an unpleasant memory.

"I hate you both," Rook tells them.


	6. Chapter 6

John offers to make breakfast, which feels like a strangely normal thing to happen, after the disaster that Rook's life has become. Though most of John's kitchen is in pieces, and everything is broken except the toaster, so it's not like he has to do much to fulfil that task, at a very basic level. Rook suspects that had been his plan all along.

Peanut still has her oatmeal and honey to finish up. But then that's it for the baby food. He's going to have to start mashing up normal food for her, though it occurs to him that his friends are showing up some time today so he can ask them to grab something, and some more clothes for her, and maybe something that squeaks, or makes cow noises. She only has one toy, and she's supposed to be learning and absorbing things in her designated play time. He has no idea what she's learning from all this, what she's learning from him. She's already made some questionable friends, and been in proximity to two gunfights. Rook is failing in some way, he just knows it.

He very quickly works out that putting Peanut on his lap and trying to feed her breakfast, without being able to actually see her face properly, is awkward as fuck. No matter which way he tips her, or sits her. But he's still surprised when John takes the jar, and the spoon, and swivels his own chair round. Peanut is perfectly happy to grab at John's hands, and make a mess all over her fashionable t-shirt, while she guides him to the best possible place for all the food to go.

Jacob's eyeing them all curiously. He opens his mouth, as if he wants to say something cutting, but then his eyes drop to where John is wiping Peanut's face with his own borrowed clothing, while she burbles a protest and wiggles her head from side to side. To where he's murmuring soft amusement at her lack of manners. 

Jacob shoves toast in his mouth instead, directs his strangely focused attention to Rook and says nothing at all. 

Rook eats his own toast, and ignores the way baby food appears in spots and splashes across his jeans.

Grace, Sharky, Hurk, Jess and Whitehorse, show up after lunch, drawing up one by one, outside the front of John's ranch.

Jacob heads out the back a few minutes before the first of them arrives, which suggests he has someone keeping watch somewhere up the road. Rook can hear the slow rumble of his voice, where he's talking to someone on his phone. He's not barking orders, and there's no impatient air that says he thinks he knows best, so if Rook had to make a guess who was on the other end he'd pick Joseph. But there's real no reason for Joseph to not know what's going on. 

Rook changes Peanut back into her original clothes, puts her rabbit-eared hat on so she can go and say hello.

The first thing Grace does is raise an eyebrow at the state of the ranch. Rook hadn't realised how much damage the early morning attack had done. Not quite rocket launcher devastation but it's still a perforated mess in places.

"Well, shit," Jess says, giving the whole ranch the once-over. Rook knows how she feels, they've only just finished clearing up a large portion of the county. It seems unfair to have any of it shot up again so soon. And, yes, John Seed's house counts as Hope County property, no matter how strongly people would protest otherwise.

"Hey, Baby Rye, long time no see." Hurk holds up his hand so Peanut can pat it, laughing at him when he pokes her on the nose, and then shakes her hands until she kicks.

Jess hands Rook a bag, which he opens and looks into, to find more diapers, baby food, formula, something that looks like a rubbery frog, and a mess of clothing.

"Hudson thought you'd charge off into the fucking unknown again with only survival rations," Jess offers. "She had half this stuff ready before you even asked."

Rook isn't even going to pretend to be annoyed about that. Gold fucking star for Joey Hudson.

"She wanted to come, but she said she's still working on the random and uncontrollable urge to stab John Seed in the face every time she sees him. So she's running surveillance on some of the outposts we found in the woods. We don't think they spotted us yet."

"Come inside," Rook tells them all. "Jacob left a copy of the map he's been making, I think this is bigger than we've been assuming." 

"Is that ok with uh...John?" Whitehorse says carefully, because Rook almost forgot that he spent three months in Faith's bunker, and hasn't spent any real time around John since the disaster. When he was all determined, purposeful madness that left sinners missing skin and afraid to sleep.

Rook nods. "Yeah, yeah, he's already agreed to help."

"He'll bitch at you constantly but he won't do anything," Jess adds. "Not while Rook's around anyway."

They follow him inside, and Whitehorse makes a low noise when he sees the state of the kitchen. At the weirdly deformed table, and cracked, barely-functional cabinets.

"It was an interesting morning," Rook offers, as they all survey the devastation. "Luckily, Peanut mostly slept through it."

"Well, thank God for that," Whitehorse says simply.

Rook puts Peanut down for her nap while they set up, while they go over what they have, and what they don't.

"We have no proof of a kidnapping, which we'd normally need for any official inquiries." Whitehorse gives him a look over the top of his glasses. "Though I think we all know a duck when we see it at this point. So I've been making a nuisance of myself. I think, under the circumstances, it's only reasonable to stop a few of our new friends and ask some polite questions." 

Rook has to wonder if there were some impolite questions in there too.

"We're also running a few checks on the dead bodies you left," Whitehorse adds. There's no condemnation there, though Rook thinks maybe he deserves a little. He'd thought he was past the point where he was going to leave dead bodies everywhere he went. He'd thought they were all past that point. Trying their best to be normal people again.

"We sent a few hunters after them when they left too, to see where they ended up," Jess tells him. "Most of them don't know shit, like sending babies into the woods. Surprised more of them haven't been eaten by bears. Though there's usually one or two with every group with some sort of training."

"Surveillance would be easier if we hadn't lost so many planes," Whitehorse offers. Which is true, they still have a bunch of pilots in the county that made it through safe, but they couldn't exactly take the planes underground with them.

"We did manage to get something from their car, when they stopped," Grace says. "They spent a lot of time when they first showed up with Burt Conrad."

Rook frowns, because that name's oddly familiar.

"Bigfoot guy?" he says slowly, half-remembering going out to his house once, because he's stolen some flares from a neighbour, or borrowed some flares from a neighbour, they'd never actually cleared that one up. Everyone had been very drunk. "Used to take tours into the woods?"

Hurk points at him.

"Yes!"

"No," Rook counters immediately. "I swear to fucking God, if this thing has anything to do with Bigfoot I'm going to put my damn foot down."

"There's no Bigfoot in the woods," Jess says. 

"That's what you'd probably say if you saw one," Hurk says accusingly. "The first instinct is always denial."

"Do not draw me into this conversation again," she grouches, with feeling. Rook thinks this is a path she's been down before, maybe more than once. 

"Anyway," Grace interrupts. "Nick was apparently seen at Burt's a week ago, so that might be something worth looking into."

Normally Rook would be the one looking into it, heading in a tight line across the county and making things happen. He hates this, he really hates it, not the fact that he has to stay with Peanut, just the fact that he can't protect her in all the ways he's good at. He knows Grace can see it as well, because she's watching his face with a complicated sort of sympathy.

"We'll look into it," she says again, and he believes her, he does, he just wants to be _doing_ something.

"How did you find all this out anyway?" Rook asks.

"Someone started a fire." Jess looks pointedly at the man who was forced to leave his flamethrower outside.

"It was a very small fire," Sharky says, palms held up. "Completely contained, no people or animals were harmed. A car may have exploded, but it was also a very small car, probably no one would have wanted it." He thinks about it for a minute. "Definitely not going to want it now."

Rook shakes his head, but can't bring himself to complain too hard because they've made tremendous progress to get from 'most of the county is on fire' to 'Sharky has set a car on fire.'

"Jacob's got someone watching the roads now," he tells them all. "So we'll know where they go."

"Yeah," Jess says. "I know you want that to sound reassuring, but that still makes half of me want to tell you to get the fuck out of here."

Rook wants to reply to that, but he can hear Peanut making 'I'm awake and no one is paying attention to me,' noises.

"Now that sounds like dinner time," Hurk says pointedly. "Man, I know that feeling. We should get some snacks. Who wants to come on a snack run with me?"

Rook leaves them to their discussion, while he goes to find her.

Peanut is grumpy and red-faced, and she smells terrible. Rook changes her on the floor, puts her in some of the clothes that his friends had brought for her. A white top with rabbits all over it, and some little blue pants. She'd lost both her socks at some point while napping, so Rook pops some new ones on her, while she kicks amusement at his attempts to hold her legs still. If John finds baby socks in his couch later he can put them somewhere, Rook will pick them up.

Grace follows him a minute later, then rolls her eyes and sighs, which suggests the conversation in the other room had dissolved into something unproductive.

John Seed is wandering again, possibly in the hope that he can make a scathing comment to someone. Because he's a dick who can't resist needling people into a reaction. Rook stops him halfway to the door - where he's probably going to say terrible things about all of Rook's friends to his brother - and settles Peanut against his chest. He lifts his hands and sighs reluctant agreement.

Grace gives Rook a pointed look. But if Nick wants to object to John Seed holding his daughter, he can get himself un-kidnapped and come hash it out with Rook himself.

He checks through the jars of new food, while Grace watches John let Peanut rub her hands over his beard and make noises like she's discovered something amazing. The only savoury flavour of baby food that doesn't make him want to die, is the chicken and broccoli. He hopes Peanut feels the same.

"Jacob has offered up some weapons, and some manpower."

"Neither of which he's supposed to still have, if I remember the agreement," Grace points out.

"I think there was a protection of property clause in there somewhere," Rook says. "We'll just assume this counts, since Nick is effectively Hope County's property, and we want him back."

That actually gets a slow, slanted smile out of her.

"A distinction I'm fairly certain wouldn't hold up anywhere."

"This isn't anywhere," Rook reasons. "It's Hope County." Because isn't there a messy truth behind that statement.

Grace hums agreement. "I can't tell you you're wrong there. And what are you going to be doing, with her?"

Rook sighs, because that feels like a harder question than Grace makes it sound, because it feels more like all the things he's not doing, that he's promised not to do, to protect her. 

"Keeping her safe," Rook says. 

"How's that working out so far?" Grace asks, it's not meant unkindly, she's just making a very valid point, considering the state of the ranch.

"What else am I supposed to do?" he asks. "Where else am I supposed to leave her." 

She sighs.

"I don't know. But you can't just keep collecting Seeds," she says, throwing a look in John's direction, which he chooses to ignore, in favour of letting Peanut play with the key round his neck. "That seems like an overreaction to any problem." She's making a joke, but Rook isn't going to pretend he hasn't had the same ridiculous thought. 

Because two of them already feels like a lot.

Peanut gurgles something and reaches up for John's sunglasses. John lets her drag them off his head and smear her entire mouth over one of the lenses. Before she insists that they must be shaken, which redistributes her dribble everywhere.

"No, Peanut, you're going to poke your own eye out." Rook unhooks her fingers and takes them back, much to her extreme displeasure. He sets them back crookedly on top of John's head and sticks Toby against her chest instead. Which she apparently considers an unequal trade, because she starts crying.

John scowls at him, and tries to awkwardly comfort her, which is unhelpful, and deeply amusing. Rook sets a hand under John's and turns his awkward patting motion into a gentle bounce.

Peanut goes from bawling to disgruntled misery, lower lip stuck all the way out.

"If you keep crying you're going to get snot in your breakfast," Rook tells her.

Peanut shakes her head like she doesn't care, throws Toby at him, and the banana bounces off his chest and goes behind the couch.

"See what I have to put up with," he tells Grace. Who's still watching them both with a raised eyebrow.

Once everyone finally packs up and leaves, with new maps, instructions to meet Jacob's men, and a plan to gather more information, Rook decides that Peanut has gone long enough as a germ-ridden disaster. He takes her upstairs to John's bathroom. Which is unnecessarily big and not even close to child friendly. Peanut gets excited, once Rook runs the water, smacking her own legs and babbling fast and loud, in the echoey room. Which makes getting her undressed something of a challenge. She briefly tangles herself up, but she comes out laughing.

There are no bubbles, there are usually bubbles in Peanut's bath, he has to wonder if he's just disappointing her at every turn. It's probably too much to hope that John has a plastic duck somewhere in here. He doesn't seem like a plastic duck sort of man, but Peanut likes toys in the bath, so she can splash everyone within range. Rook puts the rubber frog toy in instead, and hopes it doesn't dissolve or rot in the water.

He lets her splash around for a bit, squealing and talking to herself, before he tries a tiny bit of dubiously expensive shampoo on her fluffy hair, making sure not to get it anywhere near her eyes. Then lets her play with the shampoo bubbles and the frog for a bit, before rinsing her clean.

"There you go, bathtime accomplished, out we go."

She's sleepy once he dries and dresses her for the night, barely taking half a bottle on the couch, before she's asleep against his chest. She's warm, and it's kind of nice, like the world's tiniest hug.

Rook doesn't register anything else, consciousness cut out from under him, until something touches his shoulder, then curls round the ball of it. He blinks and looks up at John, who's leant over the back of the couch, eyes amused like he's been watching him for a while. It's full dark outside, and Peanut is still splayed against him, face mashed into his upper chest, puffy-cheeked and warm, breathing quietly.

Rook carefully gets up, lays Peanut down in her bed, and she doesn't even stir at the change in position. 

"Where's Jacob?" Rook asks quietly, because someone should be -

"Keeping watch," John says, before he's even finished the thought.

Which is good, Rook knows how good Jacob is at what he does, he isn't going to miss anything. He trusts Jacob not to miss anything.

God, it's been a weird six months.


	7. Chapter 7

Rook's own body throws him out of a nightmare, an unpleasant lurch that pushes him awake before he's ready.

He has no idea where he is for a minute, blankly confused where he's rolled half into the back of John's couch, half his legs all the way over the edge and going slowly numb. It's still early, there's barely any light coming through the windows. But Rook's had more than enough of sleeping, doesn't want to go back under and find himself in the tail end of that dream.

He curses and awkwardly pushes himself around, gets to his feet, and pads over to Peanut's makeshift bed. He expects her to still be sleeping, blankets bunched up at her feet - but he finds nothing but empty space.

It's such a sudden, quiet panic, strangely detached from any rational thought, just the insistence that he find her. That he find out who's _taken_ her.

It doesn't take too long though. She's in the kitchen, at the crooked table that someone has made more secure with a book under one leg. Jacob is holding her, balanced in the corner of his arm, she's helping him turn the pages of a magazine with her tiny, clumsy hands, while Jacob points out things on the pages, in a low, soft tone.

Everything in Rook goes tense. Because the memories he has of Jacob, not even half a year old, of all the things he's broken, all the people he's judged, found wanting, and then thrown away. Peanut is so small where she sits against him. She would be so easy to -

"She's fine," Jacob says quietly, without looking up, like he can feel Rook's panic from across the room. "I'm not going to hurt her."

Peanut doesn't seem to mind her position in the bend of Jacob's arm, all puffy, red cheeks, and sleep-mussed, flyaway hair. She seems to already be fascinated by Jacob's beard, trying to hide her hand inside it, and then giggling when she can't quite manage it. Even her excitable pulling doesn't seem to bother the eldest Seed. She's lost a sock again, probably at some point in the night, and Jacob is keeping her foot warm in his other hand.

Rook's body takes him forward. When Peanut spots him she makes a high-pitched, excited noise and waves her arms.

"Hey, sweetie," he says quietly.

Rook takes two steps forward and slides his hands around her body, where she's tucked against Jacob's warm, solid bulk. Jacob doesn't make a single move to stop him. It's only when she's murmuring a greeting to him, and squashing his face with her excited, patting hands that his whole body finally relaxes.

"She was awake an hour ago," Jacob explains. "Restless, I brought her in here."

Rook swallows, swallows again to try and make his mouth work, because of course he did, and if they were normal people, with a normal history, who'd never tried to kill each other, never tried to control each other, maybe that would have been completely fine. Rook didn't spend three months in Jacob's bunker, he's not used to being around him when there's no malice, no intent, no vindictive need to wound each other. No tests for him to pass, or fail, at Jacob's whim.

Maybe Rook's finding the adjustment hard too, no matter what he tells the rest of the deputies, no matter what he tells everyone who comes to him concerned, or angry, or afraid. It looks like he's not the only one, judging by Jacob's stilted lack of movement, his willingness to let Rook slide into his personal space to retrieve his goddaughter. And maybe that's something as well.

Rook settles in the chair opposite him. None of this is normal, but he supposes they're all trying to pretend until it's something close.

"I'm surprised she didn't cry," Rook says at last, awkwardly, because what even is a polite conversation with a man who used to be your enemy. A man who threatened to shred parts of you away until you were something new. He forges on anyway, because that's what Rook does, that's the way he deals with everything, he pushes through, saves what he can, tapes up the breaks, hopes for the best. "She's usually grumpy when she wakes up."

Peanut doesn't cry, she seems happy to wave between them, while Rook and Jacob offer each other tiny pieces of conversation in stilted, testing tones. She shows Rook her hands, and her one sock, which she seems to find fascinating enough that Rook suspects she's been pulling them off herself. She's still burbling quiet contentment, and occasionally making a loud questioning noise in Jacob's direction, when John shows up ten minutes later. 

Rook has worked out how to hold her on his lap and feed her at the same time, though his pants are going to have to be washed if he can't get another pair at some point. He has to wonder absently which has been making him more dirty, Peanut, or the armed men following them. 

Peanut gets apple pie for breakfast, because someone thought that was an appropriate breakfast food for babies, at least he thinks it's a breakfast food, it might be dessert. Do babies get dessert? Either way, it doesn't smell half as vile as some of the slop that Rook has discovered hiding inside those jars. Peanut likes it, judging by the way she waves and tries to jam her food covered hands in her mouth, occasionally being so forceful in her enthusiasm that it's difficult to get the spoon back

Rook gets toast for breakfast again, with cheese this time, which John seems to think is worthy of acknowledgement. The fridge has five bullet holes in it, but it still works, somehow, miraculously. Rook probably wouldn't choose to keep food in there for too long though. When they're done, Jacob slips out silently to check the perimeter, to talk to his men via the radio in low, tense tones. To do whatever it is Jacob does when he's not around other people.

Rook lets Peanut spend an hour on the floor. She has Toby, and the frog is mostly dry so he puts him on the blanket too.

He likes to think she's making some progress today, wobbling herself back and forth, and sideways, but not actually falling on her face for a change. Until the effort becomes too much for her and she takes a break, frog pressed into her mouth like she thinks he's hiding tasty filling somewhere inside. Rook honestly doesn't know how far she is away from crawling, but he feels compelled to watch her in a vaguely paranoid sort of way anyway, in case she suddenly develops the ability and heads off somewhere. 

By the time Jacob comes back Peanut's ready for her nap, frowning and rubbing her face on everything, forehead bumping into Rook's chest when he picks her up. He walks her around for a few minutes, until she's limp against him, arms dangling. Jacob's watching from the doorway, and he's almost lost that constant stiff pressure he always seems to have, like he's waiting to be needed, to be useful, to fix things that are broken. 

Peanut doesn't makes a fuss when Rook lays her down, just pops her mouth a few times and goes quiet. Peanut deserves the best protection Rook can find, the best he can gather, and it's clear that includes Jacob now, to some degree. Rook knows that Jacob is a lot to accept, but he's also steady, and methodical and constant, and the most formidable man Rook has ever met. He stands a better chance with Jacob on his side.

"Will you watch her," Rook asks him. "I'm going to shower."

Jacob comes close enough to look down into the makeshift bed, to watch Peanut's sleeping face. He grunts assent, like there isn't a mess of conflict and cautiously offered trust behind the request.

Rook heads upstairs.

He takes longer in the shower than he means to, but it feels like far more than a few days since he took a brief one in his own place, before he headed over to Nick and Kim's. He tips himself under the water and sighs out all the breath he has, stays under the torrent of it as long as he can. He finds cuts and bruises on his skin, surprises everywhere he runs the soap, wounds that he hadn't even realised he'd picked up, but nothing that demands any attention. It's really just the messy, scabbed-over cut on his mouth that he has to be careful with. Rook probably should have at least cleaned it out. He pokes it carefully in the mirror once he gets out, to make sure it's actually healing. 

He's reluctant to put his dirty clothes back on again afterwards, but he doesn't have a choice. They're dry at least, which is better than some swift changes he's had to make, in the wilds of Hope County. Also, he doesn't smell like dead wolverine, or dead cultist. So there are a few upsides to this after all.

The next time he looks in the mirror, John Seed is behind him, leant back against the door, head tilted curiously.

Rook turns to face him.

"Are you going to do anything about that?" John asks. Hand lifted, but not quite touching Rook's chin, fingers gesturing at the right side of his mouth, which feels tight and numb, but at least it's finally shut.

"What would you suggest I do," Rook asks, because he's honestly not been thinking about it much. He's had worse wounds out in the wild, that he's taped or stitched as best as he could. "It's far too late to stitch it."

"I don't know, _something_ , you're not living in the woods, or in a bunker any more, there's medical attention, antiseptic -" John stops talking, laughs quietly, hand lowering. "It seems a long way from when I first saw you to here, doesn't it? From your defiance, slapping back our outstretched hands, and upending everything, fighting us so hard. Before the whole world caught fire, before the whole world needed to be saved."

"It wasn't the whole world," Rook reminds him. Just parts of it, a glancing blow across the world from heaven - not that he'd phrase it like that near any of the Seeds, who'd all be in danger of taking him literally. 

"But we saved it together," John reminds him softly, like he thinks about it a lot, like it means something to him. "We became something new, stronger than we were before, working towards a common goal."

"Jacob let you talk to Joseph on the phone, didn't he?" Rook says. Talking to Joseph always seems to make John overly dramatic, and vaguely biblical. Though it also brings out his frustration, his need to please, and occasionally his tendency towards self-destruction. They're a complicated family.

John sighs like Rook is hopeless, or like he's not listening.

"I don't need Joseph to remind me that there's purpose behind you being here, behind you coming to us, and now you've come to us again." 

Rook sighs, because there's no point trying to dispute that. John and Joseph are too good at finding meaning where there is none, or none intended, everything either has purpose, or it's a test, or a punishment. Being around them is like travelling a river that changes course suddenly, and in strange places, and though Rook has developed some sort of skill in its navigation, that doesn't mean he's not still scraped against the rocks occasionally. 

"Technically I came to you," Rook reminds him, irritated in some way he can't quite define.

But the words soften John's expression, quiet whatever further arguments he had.

Instead he sighs, then makes a considering noise, eyes on the tear in Rook's mouth again. Rook's tempted to point out that John has enough of his own untidy scars to look at, enough of his own damage, but that feels unkind somehow. He still looks a lot like he wants to touch it, to press his thumb down over it and make Rook react. How he's been making Rook react since he'd first met him, John pushes for attention, it's what he does. But Rook hadn't realised how willing he was to give it to him.

"Coming here is just going to get messy, you know that," John says quietly, eyes lifting to meet his. Rook isn't sure he's talking about the difficulty of defending the ranch any more.

"Is that a prediction or a threat?" Rook asks him.

John smiles, as if he wants to threaten him, just a little.

"Can it be both?" 

Things around here usually are, Rook thinks.

John is still too close and Rook isn't moving, and he's going to blame that on the fact that he no longer has any idea what he's supposed to be doing.

People have been pestering him for months about his love life, not just strangers but friends too, people he respects. Telling him that he spends too much time by himself, and it's not good for him. Everyone seems to think that now there's no disaster taking up all his attention he should find someone, someone to connect to, someone to have fun with. That after everything, he deserves to be selfish, to do something for himself for a change.

Rook doesn't think this is what they meant, this is probably completely the opposite of what they meant. Because, yes, Rook knows that John Seed is attractive, and smart and charming, but he's also a fucking mess underneath it all, his whole family is a mess, and Rook is probably tangled up with them too much already. Not to mention, they have a history that's almost entirely made up of death threats, drowning and random acts of spontaneous violence. Save for a few months of peaches, quiet arguments, and the messy co-leadership of John's claustrophobic, powder keg of a bunker. It would be so stupid to touch this, to even consider it. 

John exhales, slowly, hands lifting to settle on his waist, fingers dipping just under the top of his belt, a nudge of pressure through his shirt, and something in John's face goes soft and surprised when Rook doesn't move away, when he doesn't tell him to stop, like John clearly thought he would -

Jacob thumps on the door, hard.

"Baby's hungry," he says firmly, voice barely muffled at all.

John's already pulled himself away, before Rook can think to say anything, grumbling something pitched loud enough for Jacob to hear. Before he's telling Rook he's going to serve up whatever can be eaten cold out of the busted fridge, and not to spend forever staring at himself in the mirror.

Rook's left half leaning against the sink, wondering how he seems to fall so easily from one disaster he can't control to another. He'd always thought it was the county, but maybe it's just him.

Jacob and John seem to have settled the plan for what they're doing next, while he was showering. The ranch isn't safe any more, and it's too hard to defend. There are too many holes, too many blind spots. Rook can't do anything other than agree with them, because that's his whole purpose at the moment, keeping Peanut safe.

It's the place Jacob insists on being 'safe' that Rook is having a little trouble with. They both want to head back to the compound, until this thing is finished. Or to Joseph's Island, as Rook got far too used to calling it. It's still full of peggies, or ex-peggies, loyal to Joseph and unbribable, and it's much easier to defend, until they get some better intelligence about what the fuck is going on.

But still, heading to Joseph's island would have meant something a lot different six months ago. When Joseph was on a mission, all coiled intensity, conviction and promise of violence. 

Joseph Seed is almost always pleased to see him now, in a weirdly intense sort of way that Rook is in horrible danger of starting to find normal. Rook thinks it's because Joseph convinced himself that they fulfilled some sort of prophecy together. There had been a lot of slow, pointed talk about being instruments of God's will, of Rook's purpose being inextricably linked to his own. Which is why the Sheriff's department keeps sending him over there, every time there's even a hint of something strange, or any time one of the citizens of Hope County gets testy, or thinks they see a Peggie in the woods (that half the time turns out to be a wolf, or a bear, or a scarecrow.) Because he's the only one willing to go, the only one Joseph doesn't scare the hell out of.

So, yes, Rook guesses that they're going to see Joseph.

Peanut eats her dinner, and then sits on Rook's lap and watches everyone else eat theirs, in jealous curiousity, occasionally lifting a hand for something Rook pushes around on his plate. He lets her have tiny bits every so often, until she gets bored and starts dropping them on the floor.

Once she's clean and changed they head outside.

John immediately reasons that Rook's car was a heap of shit, even before he smashed a man's face into it, which is unkind but mostly true. But there isn't half as much choice about that as there used to be. John insists that they take his truck. Which Rook isn't immediately against, but if he agrees he'll have to take the car seat out somehow, and then put it in another car. 

Or, at least, someone will? 

Rook decides that just this once he won't throw himself into the action. This time he'll delegate, because people are always bitching at him to do that more often. He tells them both to knock themselves out, while he holds Peanut. It can be a...what's the word for a second experiment to prove the results of the first. Rook can't remember? It'll be one of those. To see if Mary was just humouring him and his stupidity.

It turns out she wasn't just humouring him, three minutes later, Jacob and John are both in the back of the truck.

John went to fucking Harvard. And Jacob has probably made his own vehicle at some point, out of bark, leftover ammunition and dead bodies.

They are both very clever men, albeit in completely different ways, and Rook is feeling a little vindicated right now. Because there is a lot of talking, and a lot of irritated noises, but very little actual progress.

Rook suspects he may be witnessing the first sign of a whole new apocalypse, as he stands there, amused and lacking any fear for his life, watching John and Jacob Seed have an intense and involved discussion about a baby's centre of gravity, and dangerous crush zones, while one of them is half in a car. 

There is eventually a very loud thud, and cursing.

"Ten bucks says someone breaks something before that thing gets attached," Rook tells Peanut. Though the smart money is always on John's temper to snap first.

Peanut is immune to the absurdity of the situation, though she's still pretty excited about the whole thing, she seems to think she's going somewhere fun.

"You'll probably love him," Rook tells her flatly, because that seems to be a theme so far, and Peanut obviously has very low standards. "He's got a beard and sunglasses, and he has his own cult."

Peanut pats him on the nose, like she's telling him not to worry so much.

"I've been through too much not to," he tells her, before realising he's making up conversations for a baby, and then replying to them.

Eventually John and Jacob both reemerge from the back. 

John's hair is in his face, and he looks quietly murderous. It's a familiar look for him, but Rook thinks he's getting weirdly attached to it. 

"Not one fucking word," John says simply. "Not a single word."

Peanut giggles and waves her arms at him.

John's eyes slip down to her, and the scowl on his face breaks in brittle pieces, rebuilds itself into a smile. Rook can see the taut line of his shoulders slowly relax. John laughs, an exhale that almost sounds forced out of him. He fixes his hair, teeth pressing together briefly, before he's something like composed again.

Rook holds her out, and she kicks excitement.

John looks briefly surprised by the gesture, before he lifts his own hands to take her.

"Come on then, princess, let's go on an adventure."


	8. Chapter 8

Rook wants to drive through town, but both Seeds agree that's a bad idea. Jacob because it will make them more obvious, and John because he doesn't enjoy being around people that hate him, now he isn't allowed to carve sins into their skin, and then cut them off. Which, Rook is forced to remind him, is not a normal way to deal with your problems. No matter how many times your older brother tells you that God wants you to do it. Rook chooses to just be grateful that confessions are now optional for people not already in the cult. Though he suspects John is still hopefully waiting for more people to ask.

They also both agree that Rook's riding in the back. He votes against that, but there's two of them so he loses.

Peanut seems more than happy to have Rook sitting next to her. She waves Toby at him and bounces with every part of her body, then flings the banana across the seat, only to wave her hands at it again, like she's telling Rook to fetch it back. So, yes, Rook figures he's also in charge of toy rescue as well. It feels a lot like a demotion, and he's fairly sure Jacob did that on purpose.

Jacob's quiet and tense for the drive, no matter how many lazy observations John makes, or disturbing anecdotes he shares. Rook has never met someone so willing to share their psychological scarring, or to be so brutally honest about it. Though Peanut seems to love the tone and rhythm of John's voice, laughing and waving her hands in his direction every time he turns to look at her, and Rook is deeply grateful that she doesn't know what any of the words mean.

Jacob still feels like he's expecting trouble, and Rook would love to say he knows Jacob well enough to say that he always feels like that. But it would be a lie.

"South Team, any changes on the route?"

There's a moment of quiet, a low, unthreatening wash of static through Jacob's radio, but no answer. Rook is getting that unpleasant, tense feeling again and he hates it. Without really thinking about it he tucks Toby into the elasticated waistband of Peanut's little blue pants.

"South Team, report?"

Whoever Jacob left in charge of watching their way forward isn't responding, and Rook knows this county far too well to even consider radio interference, or laziness, and so does Jacob. Because he doesn't try his men again, he sets the radio down.

"Straight ahead or back the way we came, to Fall's End?" Rook asks.

Jacob locks eyes with him in the mirror, like he's thinking about it. The information they've picked up already says that there are easily enough armed men in the county, with enough basic knowledge, to have both directions covered, and with the steep incline and the baby in the back, heading into the woods anywhere along the route is not an option. 

"John, get in the back, Rook, forward," Jacob says simply. He's already handing Rook his gun across the seat, and Rook doesn't question, doesn't protest. Because they're all in the line of fire, and one of them is a fucking baby, and Rook is going to need to be doing something here.

John doesn't argue either, doesn't even seem offended that he's been the one quickly singled out as least useful in a gunfight. He slides his boots through the centre and over, hands pushing Rook awkwardly forward as he goes. Rook can already hear him clicking Peanut's straps open and saying her name in a quiet tone, while she burbles curious uncertainty at all the snapped-out commands and tension.

They pass a gas station, and it's on fire, which feels a little too much like a memory, too much like history. It pulls at Rook's nerves, forcing his body into a state of readiness for the third time in as many days. He doesn't feel so rusty any more, like his skin and bones are remembering what it felt like to live like this. He's not sure whether to be relieved or worried that it's all coming back to him so easily.

But he thinks the fire is a statement. They've apparently stopped trying to hide their presence in town. Whatever they're here for, someone has lost patience.

He needs to check in with the Sheriff at some point, with Grace, to see what this mess looks like from the outside.

A hundred feet up the road, just past the turn, Rook can make out the dark line of cars where they shouldn't be, where the road narrows, forest on one side, long drop on the other. They're obviously slanted together in the road, so no one can get past. Six months ago Rook might have tried to barrel straight through them, hit the point of least resistance, where the metal is thin, designed to give, easy to crush. But Peanut is too small and too fragile to put through a collision. The dark figures surrounding the roadblock are set away from the centre anyway though, just in case the people of Hope County decide to be reckless. Rook wonders if they did any research at all.

There are far more of them than Rook's expecting, more like a full outpost than a roadblock, and Jacob's unhappy about that too, if the hard noise he makes is any indication. 

"Can you do what you're told?" Jacob clips out, and it's clear he's talking to Rook. At any other point in time, Rook might have been contrary on purpose, so used to making his own decisions, his own choices, that often barely got him from one explosion to the next. But he has Peanut to think about, and he's choosing to hope for once that Jacob's added experience and ability is going to give them an edge.

"Yes, I can do what I'm told, just tell me what I'm _doing_ ," Rook snaps out.

"They want the baby, which, if we're lucky, means they're not just going to fire blindly. They're probably going to come from the front and the left as soon as we stop, no explosives. The closer we get, the more penetration they get. I have seventeen shots left for my rifle, you have about thirty, though you have it on single shot so it shouldn't matter. Once I hit the second treeline I'm going to turn in. Me and John will get behind the truck, and if any of them feel like taking a shot, they're welcome to pop their heads out and try."

Rook looks in the mirror, to where John is now by the door, arm resting against it, face calmer than Rook feels. Peanut's curved into the side of his chest, all patting, wet hands and bubbly mouth. One of John's hands is braced round the back of her head. And Rook wants to go to her, he wants to take her, but he knows he can't. He has a job to do, and he can't do it holding her.

"Where am I going?" Rook asks. Because he already knows it's going to be somewhere else.

"You're going left into the woods."

Rook grits his teeth, entire body taut with refusal. Insides crawling like something is eating them.

"You want me to _leave_ the car?" Half of Rook thinks it's another test, something Jacob knows he'll refuse, a reason to immediately call his promised obedience a lie

"Yes, I want you to leave the car. There are more of them in the woods, and I want you to do what you did best, make a fucking nuisance of yourself, drive a wedge into their formation, so they can't advance on our position. Because the best me and John can hope for behind the car is a deflection, or for them to hit an axle or the engine. So I need you to put down as many as you can, and to do it fast, can you do that?"

The solid line of dark cars is too close now, the men shifting into a more defensible position.

"I can't leave her," Rook says simply. "I promised I wouldn't leave her."

"Then I suggest you stay close, and work quickly," Jacob snaps out.

"God fucking damn it," Rook says, with feeling - but when the car slows, turns, swings like the fucking beast it is, Rook shoves the door open and makes for the trees.

It takes him, two, four, six seconds to be tucked tight into the closest trunk, long enough for someone to take a shot at him, then another. Then they're firing at the car, and Rook's entire body clenches up, demands that he go back, find Peanut, protect her. 

That's what you're doing, he tells himself. That's what you're doing, _do your fucking job_.

He can hear Jacob's rifle, though he's aware the man has to stick his head up to take the shot, unless he sacrifices accuracy for defence, which he isn't sure Jacob will do.

Jacob was right about the woods though, they'd settled men inside it, waiting for them. They're not ready for Rook, they're still moving forward, still finding good cover, still trying to determine how much of a threat Rook poses. He thinks it's only polite for him to show them.

He makes it twenty feet before they force him back against a tree. But that's the thing about the woods here, they grow straight and sparse, diagonals tend to give you a pretty good shot at whatever is trying to hide ahead of you. They might as well be in a corridor, tucked in, leaning out, up and over the trees, right into Rook's line of sight, straight in Rook's path as he slips past them, puts them down, moves on.

It's almost like Jacob trained him for exactly this moment. Though he's damned if he's going to give him any credit for that.

Rook takes out one, then two, then three. He can still hear the bite of Jacob's rifle, the high, frightened sound of a baby crying. Rook moves closer, turns, finds three men moving towards the gap he's chosen to head through. He slides tight to a tree and takes two of them. The third he's close enough to grab, to force to the ground under a hand and a knee, to pull what shouldn't be pulled, until something cracks and he goes still

"Keep moving," Rook bites to himself. "Watch your time." It's a breathy whisper, that takes him close, closer.

He can hear a low voice, shouting commands through the woods, and he's come far enough that if he looks right he can see the dip of metal ahead, where the cars are turned towards each other in the road. Most of the men have taken cover behind them, but half a dozen are laying on the ground, guns and equipment spilled from their hands. Half of the ones who are left are also surprisingly impatient, breaking cover like eager Peggies. Jacob punishes every single one of them.

The one's that dared to slip into the woods are edging back towards the roads, realising that Rook is not going to let them make any progress

Rook digs into the back of them, moving forward, hitting everything they dare to show him. Until the easy formation turns into angry shouts, and noise, and finally into bad decisions. An eager rush to a tree too far away, a crouch behind a rise that isn't quite high enough, stretching a hand out to try and drag a fallen companion's radio closer. No one is getting off any radio calls for help, for reinforcements, to share information, not this time

Rook knows how to do this. He hadn't thought he'd have to do it again. 

But he remembers.

He works his way through the woods, thinning the attackers out, punishing them for coming here and making everyone relive this shit, for making this _personal_. Two men are crouched low, just under a rise, and if Rook hadn't been tipping his head every so often, watching for peripheral movement, he might have missed them. The first is too slow tracking Rook as he comes round the tree, goes down in the dirt. Jacob's rifle takes out the second.

Rook takes the time to lean briefly out of cover, to check the road, and he's surprised to see only a few men tucked down behind the cars now, trying not to get their heads shot off. Which explains the assist.

Eventually he reaches the road again, a semi-circle of silence behind him, nothing left but the static breathing of one man, settled in behind the opposing cars, all alone, no men and no backup left. Intent on staying low out of Jacob's line of sight. He doesn't see Rook until he's right next to him, startled in a way that's almost comical, rifle swinging up in his Rook's direction. But he's not fast enough.

"Time," Rook says quietly.

He leaves the body in the road, quickly heads back to where he can still hear his goddaughter crying.

John and Jacob are still behind the car, though there's a loose, settled stillness to Jacob now, that tells Rook that he was right, there isn't anyone left. The other man watches him come close, gives a slow tilt of head that seems quietly impressed.

"We should leave before reinforcements reach this position," he says calmly.

Rook slips past him, to where John is still pressed tight to the wheel, hand cupped over Peanut's head, where she screams and bumps at it, bashes at him, confused and frightened. 

John is wearing a savage, bright grimace, which he turns in Rook's direction, sliding up to his feet.

"I don't think I should be holding her right now," he says, strained and apologetic, offering her kicking body over to him. When John lets her go, Rook watches his hands clench, watches the angry curve of his mouth, tensing like he doesn't know where to put anything he's feeling. But there's something that looks like fear somewhere behind his eyes. "I didn't mean to squash her. She didn't want to be - " John stops. He looks like he might throw up.

But Peanut's fine, she's absolutely fine, little hands screwing and pulling in Rook's jacket. 

"She's ok," Rook says. "She's ok, she's just confused, and frightened by all the loud noises." Rook shushes her, then bounces her gently, still trying to pull himself up out of one place and into another, one that's more comforting warmth, and less sharp, focused tension. He pets Peanut's hair, telling her she's a good girl in low, soft tones until the noise turns murmuring and wet. Until she's just dribbly and red-faced. 

He shows her that they're all still there, he even lets her see Jacob. He lets her pat at Jacob, murmuring unhappy vowel sounds. After a pause Jacob's big hand lifts and curves over her head, making her look almost unbearably small. She makes a 'wawawawa' noise at the gentle stroke of his fingers.

"You were a good girl," Jacob offers, in a low, steady voice, before his hand slides away.

"See," Rook tells her. "Everyone is still here, everyone is ok."

He carefully sets her back in her car seat and clicks her in, though she's still making unhappy noises and rubbing her face on Toby like she doesn't know what else to do. Rook is the angriest he's been for months, and this is possibly the first time that he thinks he's actually earned the tattoo he has on his chest, because this is not the sort of thing babies should have to deal with. No more fucking gunfights around the baby, that's enough now. He just hopes that's a promise he can keep.

When he straightens John is watching him, expression stiff, as if he thinks he's failed in some way, and he's waiting for whatever castigation Rook wants to lay on him. When John has done everything, _fucking everything_ to keep Peanut out of harm's way. 

"Thank you," Rook says simply. He catches John's shoulder, with a hand that's far too clean for all the bodies he left in the woods, squeezes until he can feel the bone. 

"You have very low standards for gratitude," John says hoarsely. Which makes Rook huff something too tired and too brittle to be amusement, but his hand has shifted, almost without his permission, to the curve of John's neck. And maybe Rook just wants something warm to grab onto, something human, something that isn't a memory he's in danger of getting lost in. But John doesn't seem to mind, angry tension bleeding out of him. Rook's drawing his hand back when he sees the delicate pattern of fine droplets against the side of John's neck. He pulls his shirt open far enough to find the smooth unbroken skin of his throat and collarbone.

"You have blood on you," Rook says tightly. "John, are you bleeding?"

John isn't bleeding. Rook checks Peanut, instinctively, but she's waving Toby and she's clean as a whistle save for some little splotches from her tears and snot.

Which leaves -

"It barely grazed me," Jacob says firmly. "I'm fine."

"Jacob." John's voice is harsh, and he's pushing past Rook, all hands on his brother.

"We don't have time," Jacob says, though Rook notices that he won't physically push John away. John has already worked Jacob's torn jacket and shirt aside, pulling at the collar of the t-shirt beneath.

The bullet has bitten in through the layers of skin and into the muscle, between neck and shoulder, a small but messy wound that trails long curls of red, slowly staining Jacob's t-shirt, and the skin beneath.

"It's a graze," Jacob says.

"It's a gouge," Rook corrects, moving in and carefully tilting Jacob, so he can see exactly where the muscle has been torn open, and the other man is hot under his fingers but he moves strangely easily, strangely willingly under a combination of Rook's and his brother's hands.

"It's a gouge," John repeats, angry, a breath away from touching it. Leaning in so tight he's a hard weight against Rook's arm and shoulder.

"We don't have time to deal with it now." Jacob makes it sound like an argument he's already won. "John, move one of the cars, so we can reach Joseph. And pick up a rifle, and as much spare ammunition as you can carry."

John scowls at Jacob's pushing, but he slides round them both and jogs up the road, until he can slip into one of the black cars. 

Rook still has his hands on Jacob's skin, which feels like a long way from where they were this morning. Jacob doesn't push at him, doesn't know him well enough to be able to push him the right way, not for this, not for bruises and questions and quiet, unexpected concern. He just faces Rook's assessing gaze like he's waiting for him to make a point. Rook's honestly not sure what his point is, or if there's just something compelling about seeing Jacob pulled open, about seeing him bleed. Rook had always known he wasn't indestructible, he's just never seen it for himself, he'd worked so hard to see it for himself, wanted it. But now that he has - God now that he has, he's less happy about it.

"You'll get this looked at," Rook says simply, knuckles pressing briefly to the skin beneath the wound, before his hands slide away. 

Jacob nods, slowly, mouth pulled up a fraction at the edge, as if he's finding Rook's unexpected insistence, or his concern, amusing.

Rook has released him and stepped back, by the time John comes back, and Jacob hasn't bothered to right his clothing. He climbs back into the truck, checks his gun again.

"John, are you riding in the back with Peanut?" Rook asks, because there's no way to know for sure if they're meeting anyone else on the road. If there are any more surprises waiting for them on the road ahead.

"Yes," John says impatiently, and shoves him towards the front of the car.

But Jacob is still in the damn driver's seat, hands on the wheel like he thinks he's driving - and Rook doesn't know what sort of operations Jacob's been running, but people who've been shot don't drive. Rook doesn't give a shit if they are technically in charge.

"Get over," Rook tells him. 

Jacob sighs, like he's regretting ever showing up for this mess of an adventure, if it's going to continue to involve Rook trying to make him do things. But he slowly and reluctantly moves into the passenger seat anyway. Facing forward, gun held steady, like it was his decision all along.

There's no question about where they have to go now, because these assholes just declared war on the county. Rook has walked that road once, and he's not willing to go through it by the seat of his fucking pants again. This time Rook is going to the one man one who all the Peggies will listen to and obey, without fucking question, and he's going to get some answers.

Let's see how whoever's in charge likes facing down the combined forces of Hope County and Eden's Gate.


	9. Chapter 9

Joseph is waiting for them just past the main road that leads into the park. He's surrounded by Peggies, who wait, silent and obedient in a simple semi-circle behind him. Almost all of their weapons are holstered, or held down, but Rook still remembers how sharp and hot their devotion can run. He remembers watching one of them make the choice to plunge into a helicopter's blades, dying without hesitation to protect the Father.

The Peggies are a lot less distressing to look at since the bunkers opened though, Rook will give them that. Now that they take the time to wash, use a comb, and choose their own clothing. As if their appearance matters somehow now, that they might be judged on it and how it reflects on Joseph, in a way they never seemed to care about before. Most of them have ditched the ugly Eden's Gate sweaters, for a more ordinary look. But Rook's pretty sure that no matter what they look like now, most of them are still Peggies underneath.

Joseph lifts his arms, like he can gather them all in close. Jacob and John drift towards him almost on automatic, leaving Rook no choice but to fill the space Joseph leaves right in front of him.

"I'm truly happy to see you all together," Joseph says. "Even in such testing circumstances."

Joseph has a long look for John, for the unexpected weight in his arms. Peanut seems uncertain surrounded by so many strange people, fist pushed into her mouth, mumbling around it in shy curiousity. Until John gives her a little bounce and pats her, points at Joseph and tells her his name. To which Peanut pops her fist out of her mouth, and gives a dribbly wave.

Rook couldn't say exactly why he'd given her to John, he'd just wanted his hands free when they met Joseph, some old fear that wasn't quite cored out of him. No matter how many times he stops near the church, lets Joseph move in close, hands always ready to catch, and hold, and guide Rook where he's never quite sure he should follow. But considering Peanut's arms are now curled around John Seed's neck, maybe Rook had left sensible and cautious behind. He's been following his instincts for a while now, and it hadn't really occurred to him until now, that with the way his life tends to go, there's a strong possibility that his instincts are just _broken_.

Joseph smiles at John and Peanut, nods at Jacob, and then takes one more step, hands lifting to catch at Rook's upper arms. There's an odd strength in his fingers when he squeezes, when he pulls just a little, as if the movement wants to come with closeness, with contact, as if he already has a space where Rook is supposed to fit. 

"You are always welcome here," Joseph says, like it's an important pronouncement for everyone, rather than a polite greeting. Though Rook chooses to take it as a polite greeting, mostly for his own sanity.

"Thank you for letting us stay here," he says, because he has no doubt that Joseph already knows everything that Jacob and John do, and between them they know almost all of it.

Joseph encourages Rook to follow him, and John and Jacob fall into step with them, John close enough that Peanut can see Rook while she chews and mumbles, occasionally blurting a noise in his direction. For once Rook isn't the one getting the majority of the curious stares. He doesn't know exactly what Eden's Gate's rules are about children. But he does know that the old rules were relaxed a little, when all the fires had finally been put out. A few of the Peggies have gotten married since the disaster, and he's seen some of them openly holding hands, and even kissing. Where exactly is the line between Doomsday cult, and creepy but functional religion? He'll have to ask John some time how it all works now.

"You encountered trouble," Joseph says quietly, as if he already knows, fed information from someone along the route. Or by someone following behind them, in charge of dealing with the bodies, and any possible pursuit. Or maybe they just look like people who'd been put through an unexpected shootout halfway through Holland Valley. If there is a look to that then Rook feels like he's probably worn it more than most.

"Roadblock, two dozen armed men," Jacob offers. "Not a patrol but purposeful, they're watching the roads. I'd wager there was a team closing in behind us as well."

"There was," Joseph agrees. "They've been dealt with." He makes it sound like a judgement he wasn't involved in making, when Rook knows damn well that there was probably an angry speech about men who would follow his brothers, with the intent to do harm.

"They're out in the open now then?" Rook asks. Because the last he'd heard they'd still be trying to keep a low profile, with bases deep in the woods, or settled in buildings far back from the roads.

Joseph nods.

"Yesterday they moved themselves into positions they obviously considered of strategic importance. Then planned a series of small advances and operations that they believed would lead to them being in a position to control the area from the Henbane to the mountains. They were clearly expecting a great deal more distracted infighting, between the townsfolk and our followers, and perhaps a lower population, due to the severity of the damage to surrounding counties." 

"They tried to take half the county overnight," Jacob realises, then makes a noise like he can already guess exactly how that went.

"Did they do any research before they came here?" John asks. "Because I feel like that's the first thing that would have come up." At some point Peanut has acquired John's sunglasses, and she seems to be trying to awkwardly put them on, but is mostly in danger of jabbing herself in the face with them. Jacob helpfully scoops them up and away from her, and puts them on his own head. Peanut pats John's face in frustrated annoyance, until Jacob shows her the rabbit's foot he keeps round his neck.

Joseph spends a moment watching the display with a strange air of approval.

"I'm guessing they hadn't planned for a population that had been through exactly the same thing less than a year ago," Rook says. "And kept all the guns they used to overthrow the first attempt."

"Not all the guns," Jacob mutters.

"They lost roughly a third of their manpower overnight," Joseph says simply. "Before they retreated."

Rook's too surprised to speak for a second. He's always had faith in the people of Hope County to be stubborn, destructive and unexpectedly imaginative in their response to threats from both within and without, but he's actually impressed. He'd thought his part of this was fairly eventful, but it turns out it's been going on everywhere. Shit, he really needs to get in touch with Grace and Earl.

"As of this morning they've started destroying property behind them," Joseph continues. "In a way that feels less like careful planning and more like a child's tantrum." Joseph's disapproval of that is obvious, though there's no pointed accusation of wrath to go with it, no carefully worded judgement, maybe he's saving it for later.

"We definitely saw some of that, we passed a gas station burning, and the bridge to the North looks impassable now."

"Frankly, I'm not surprised they didn't want to deal with Jacob's region. You do have a rather obviously well-prepared presence up there. I know it always scared the shit out of me," Rook points out to Jacob. Though he hadn't really had a choice about going there, men and weapons flowed from Jacob down, it had been the only way to cut the chain.

"And yet every time I turned around you were there," Jacob reminds him, in a slow, even tone that Rook thinks is trying to make a point. "Throwing a wrench into every plan, causing chaos where I had left order."

"Getting mauled by a wolf?" Rook adds. Because if he remembers anything from Jacob's miserable region it was the constant threat of getting his soft parts torn open. Being hounded through the woods, in the rain, by Jacob's best soldiers he could handle. The crazy wolves had given him nightmares.

"That too," Jacob agrees, and he's smiling again. This is probably why no one ever visits him.

"Still," John offers. "Cutting off the easiest way into the Whitetail Mountains is probably the most sensible thing they've done."

"I have boats," Jacob says simply. As if it amuses him to point out the obvious flaw in their plan.

"Oh, and Jacob was shot," John points out, testily, as if he's annoyed that no one's mentioning it, that Jacob hasn't offered it as important information.

Joseph stops walking, bringing them all to a halt.

"Jacob." There's concern and accusation in his voice, Joseph frowns at his elder brother, reaches a hand to grasp at Jacob's solid elbow, more focused in his onceover than before.

"It's a graze, I'll deal with it when we get inside," Jacob says simply. But he doesn't try and pull himself from Joseph's grip.

Joseph's attention is biting for a second longer, before he seems to reluctantly bow to Jacob's experience, and nods his head for them to continue.

"The island is already secured against outsiders who are unknown to us. Jacob's men have been working with Rook's own people to discover why these unknown soldiers are here, and what they are looking for."

Rook wants to protest that they're not his people, that he doesn't acquire people like Joseph does, but he's too busy wondering exactly how those collaborations are working out for everyone involved. Considering that the careful team-ups that have happened in the past were always thick with tension, recriminations and occasionally spilled over into bitter grudge-filled violence.

"I was also told that they discovered Burt Conrad shot dead in his home," Joseph offers. "He'd been there somewhat less than a week."

Rook's not exactly surprised about that. He was waiting for him to turn up dead somewhere, or the newcomers would likely have been holding Burt and not Nick and Kim.

"It seems safe to assume it started with him then," he says. 

"So the man did find something in the woods," John guesses. "While hunting for Bigfoot of all things. Something that they want, and he either told Rye about it, or gave it to him."

"Or even if he didn't, they thought he did, enough to take him just to be sure," Jacob adds.

"A sensible conclusion," Joseph agrees. "Grace Armstrong has been working over his notebooks, apparently he kept careful logs of all of his traps and daily search areas. So we're hoping to discover where exactly he was, and what he was doing, what he found, or saw, just before he was killed."

Joseph has a house near the river, it's not as dramatic as John's, but it's tall and easily defensible, which is all Rook wants at this point.

The door opens to the last member of their family, looking more solid than Rook remembers, though part of him still wants to prod her, to make absolutely sure she's really there. Faith's round face is pulled wide with a smile, hair pinned neatly for a change out of her face. Her eyes are unexpectedly friendly when they spot Rook. 

"Hello, Rook," she says, voice all warmth like they've known each other forever.

He nods cautiously. Because Faith is the one he's spent the least time with, since the world didn't end. 

"Faith."

She looks surprised to find John carrying Peanut too, but she moves out of the way so they can come inside, before reaching out and catching a tiny hand, spreading Peanut's fingers.

"Hey, beautiful, it's nice to finally meet you."

Peanut laughs and pulls excitably, until Faith takes a laughing step forward and strokes her hair and cheeks. She looks like she wants to take Peanut from John and hold her, but she doesn't, she just settles for shaking her tiny hands and watching her laugh.

"She's adorable," she says to Rook, though her smile is bright and all for Peanut. "And so little. How old is she?"

"Six months," Rook pauses. "Or nearly six months?" Kim could say how old she was to the day, but Rook is less certain.

Joseph gently herds them all into the living room, and Rook steps aside when Joseph slides past him to reach up for what looks like a medical kit, while Jacob seats himself, carefully and methodically drawing his jacket, shirt and t-shirt free. As if he knows that Joseph will tend to him, whether he agrees or not. He's paler underneath than Rook is expecting, the muscled width of him slowly going heavy with age, scars that run the length of his shoulder and arm stark in the light.

John settles across from them, Peanut balanced on his lap, talking loudly to Toby and making bubbles with her mouth. Rook absently fishes in the bag for the half a bottle she never finished, passes it over. John gives it a curious look but takes it, Peanut does most of the work after that, guiding it down to her mouth with an 'mmmmmm' of interest. She's quiet afterwards, tipped back against John's chest, drinking and pulling on her own socks. Rook knew she'd been removing them herself, crafty little monster.

Faith watches John feed the baby, face scrunched in amusement, as if it's the funniest thing she's ever seen.

Rook sits on the closest chair, while Joseph slowly tips Jacob into the light, carefully laying a hand on the torn, bleeding skin of his shoulder until he can see the extent of the damage. Then Joseph settles next him, finds gauze and carefully works on cleaning the tacky mess of it. The edges are raw, and untidy, but Jacob simply tips his head out of the way and sighs quietly. Joseph works slowly and carefully, with a gentle sort of patience, that Rook has never really seen from him before. 

"This is not a graze," Joseph says quietly, eyeing Jacob over his glasses, chastising and unhappy.

"I told you it was a gouge," Rook says. To which Joseph hums agreement.

Jacob sighs again, chest rising and sinking with the movement. His face doesn't change, but something about him seems to soften, accepting Joseph's opinion. 

Joseph carefully tapes clean gauze down over the wound, gives Jacob a pointed look, which he finally acknowledges, before straightening, and reclaiming his t-shirt from the neat pile he'd made.

"I need to contact the Sheriff, and Grace," Rook says, slipping his phone out of his pocket, finding the screen cracked, and a critical low battery warning blinking at him. "Shit. Does anyone have a charger I can borrow?"

It's barely a moment before a smooth, delicate hand is offered over his shoulder.

"Give it here," Faith says. "I'll put it on to charge for you."

Joseph shows Rook the kitchen and tells him to help himself to anything he or Peanut needs. She won't be hungry again for a while yet, so Rook puts down the blanket and settles her on her stomach with her toys. She immediately pushes herself up onto her arms, using them for balance as she talks to herself and everyone around her, trying to produce something in the way of forward momentum.

"Yeah, you're nearly there, aren't you?" Rooks tells her.

Faith kneels there with her, talking to her in her musical voice, and occasionally laughing and tipping Peanut back the right way up, when her enthusiasm becomes too much.

Joseph, Jacob and John settle on the seats around him, making the room feel strangely full. Rook hasn't been around all of them together since the church, listening to Joseph rave and bite at the interruption to his service, the promise of violence and destruction that would eventually come. John was right, that feels like a long time ago, three disasters ago, to be exact, though that seems an unfair way to count time. Rook feels weirdly out of place among them, a stranger begrudgingly offered a place before the family.

But Joseph gathers him in, seats him as the fourth corner of their square and offers what else he knows in low tones, with the occasional interruption from Jacob, to expand their knowledge, add pieces that Joseph is not experienced enough to make sense of, and Joseph lets him.

"The mixed teams are running surprisingly smoothly. A fact I feel you deserve some credit for, since you chose your companions for their flexibility, and their willingness to adapt to the unexpected. They've been passing on that requirement in their own teachings."

Rook has to wonder if that's a subtle admission that Eden's Gate has a problem with adapting to the unexpected. If it is, Rook would agree with it wholeheartedly. Also, to never learn from their mistakes and to try the same tactic many times, in the mistaken belief that eventually they'd get good enough at it that they'd manage to surprise him and win.

"I also feel like I provided many examples of what to do when the carefully laid out plan goes to shit, and everything is unexpectedly on fire," Rook offers, because that's fair.

Jacob's mouth briefly stretches into a curve, before flattening out. Rook likes to think that counts as making Jacob smile. 

"I have no doubt about that," Jacob says. "But lets hope it's not a skill that becomes necessary."

Jacob has left his jacket on the chair, and Rook thinks this is what counts as casual for him. Maybe this is what counts as casual for all of them, this relaxed acceptance, where no one performs, or demands, or gives orders.

"There are almost a dozen groups still to report in." Jacob stops briefly to reach down and pick Toby up off of his boot, pass him back to Faith. She laughs and rubs him on Peanut's nose, much to her amusement. "Including Armstrong, who went out again to Conrad's place. I'm not expecting to hear back from them until late tonight, or tomorrow morning, unless there's trouble, or unless they find something that can't wait."

That's still a lot of people out in the wild, trying to avoid being spotted, or snatched up, because information flow works both ways, if they're not careful. Rook never took more than two people out at a time, and this is the first time he's been stuck away from the action, worrying about people. And whether they're Eden's Gate or county citizens, Rook doesn't think it matters at this point.

Still, there's a lot to unpack, a lot that Rook hasn't been aware of, that Grace and Earl either haven't felt was important enough to put in his updates, or just slipped past when there was too much to relay. Joseph has it all, and he shares it all with Rook.

Until there's a loud squeal from around Rook's feet.

He goes still and carefully looks down, finds Peanut holding onto his boot, four feet from where she started, little arms shaking.

"Hey," Rook says, laugh startled out of him. "You did it. You are such a clever girl, well done, sweetie." He reaches down and picks her up, lets her sit on his knee, legs kicking hard enough to make her bounce until he wraps a hand around her and makes a proud noise. He smiles down at the top of her head, before realising that everyone is watching him. He's not sure _why_ everyone is watching him, he feels like that's a pretty great milestone to be distracted for.

"I know, he's been like this the whole time," John mutters under his breath, and Rook has no idea what he's talking about.

Jacob is nodding in some confusing sort of agreement. While Joseph just watches, silently and serenely, like all of this was meant to be.

"I don't think she's ever done that before," Rook tells everyone. Which proves at least one of them has been putting in the work. Though Rook does have a long, worried moment when he realises he's going to have to watch Peanut all the time now, she could escape from anywhere, plunge off on her own adventure without him. Which is ever so slightly terrifying.

Peanut eventually takes her nap in a basket that Faith has filled with blankets, and Peanut's fascinated by the texture, judging by the way she drags her fingers back and forth over it, while she drifts sleepily off, bottle balanced awkwardly in one hand, Toby gripped in the other.

Rook can't help but admit that this place, on an island populated by a fanatical army, surrounded by a cult leader, a sadist, a ruthless soldier and a woman who'd once drugged and controlled an entire mindless army, is probably the safest place in the whole county.


	10. Chapter 10

Joseph makes dinner, and insists that Rook stay and eat with them, even though he offered to take a room in one of the smaller buildings. Joseph's polite insistence has an unnerving weight to it, as if it's important to him that Rook agrees, that he feels welcome. But he honestly has no reason to refuse Joseph's hospitality, and some actual food sounds like the best idea ever right now. 

Rook's offered a chair between Joseph and John, making the table lopsided, though no one seems to mind. Jacob has even wrangled an old-fashioned high chair from somewhere, and Peanut gets to sit next to him for a change, patting her hands on the lip and playing with the little plastic bowl that Faith sets in front of her. Rook knows exactly what will happen if they leave Peanut in control of her own dinner, but she's clearly happy, noisily banging the plastic against the chair.

The food smells amazing, and Rook can't remember the last hot meal he sat down to with other people. A few months ago maybe? When Kim and Nick had extra, and Kim had pushed him into a chair and wouldn't let him leave without feeding him. It had been nice, he hopes that they can - he wants them to be able to do that again some time.

Before they eat, Rook gets one of Joseph Seed's hands slipped into his own, and it takes him a second to work out why, feels awkward once he does. It's not the curl of fingers he would have expected but a full grasp, warm and oddly familiar, and once he notices that John has a hand lifted on his other side, smiling indulgently at Rook's expression, he takes it. Faith watches him from across the table, she seems to find the fact that he has no idea what he's doing endlessly amusing.

Peanut talks to everyone, while Joseph does his thing, taking one of her socks off and waving it furiously, before throwing it in the general direction of the table. It lands on Jacob's fork and Rook has to bite down on a completely unexpected laugh. Because cracking up in a house full of Seeds, when they're trying to have a moment, seems inappropriate and yet also somehow hilarious.

But eventually Joseph's hand slowly draws free of his, and Jacob is handing the tiny sock back, so Rook can push Peanut's foot into it again, much to her delight.

Rook carefully mashes up Peanut's green beans and potatoes, alternating between feeding her and feeding himself. Though, as predicted, she's annoyed that she doesn't get to keep the bowl full of dinner. She's distracted anyway, more interested in talking to everyone around the table and gesturing at things, than in eating what Rook is trying to spoon into her mouth. Which is understandable, Rook supposes, since it's usually just Nick and Kim at her table, she's never had this many people around her, eating and paying attention to her before.

Family dinner is something of a new experience for Rook too, who's been making his own food for years and usually eats alone, on a chair pushed into the counter at home.

The conversation is oddly normal. They don't discuss the invasion of Hope County, or the fighting they've been dragged through since Rook ended up with them. Joseph asks him about work, about his plans for the future, about his friends. There are small, specific details to his questions, that tell Rook that Joseph has either been paying attention to gossip, or keeping an eye on him. The thought doesn't bother him as much as it might have done. Rook might once have hoped that things really would go back to normal for him, that he'd just be one of the deputies again, whose name people sometimes forgot. But that was never going to happen, not after everything.

There are no awkward silences, conversation moves between the siblings like it's flowing round the table. Jacob talks about his wolves. Faith about the botanists that have asked to come and study the Bliss, or its more complicated Latin name, which Rook is never going to remember. John asks about Peanut, which surprises Rook into talking more than he has done for months, and makes the conversation flow outwards, until there's laughter, shared memories and a quiet sort of relaxed welcome which is foreign enough that Rook isn't sure what to do with it.

Peanut throws a handful of potato, and then points at it, as if demanding to know who did it. Rook is starting to suspect she's going to get away with everything.

"I'm sorry if she makes a mess on the floor." Rook can't help but say.

"Fuck the floor," Jacob says simply. Then promptly gets told off for cursing at the dinner table.

Rook thinks maybe this is what family is supposed to feel like.

He puts Peanut down to sleep after dinner, since she's full and ends up almost dropping off while Rook is trying to clean her up and change her. It's a little early but she's had a long day, half of which was probably entirely Rook's fault, though he feels guilty enough about that already.

Joseph offers something of Jacob's for Rook to wear, while his clothes wash. Which Rook chooses to feel weird about but to accept anyway, because he's so dirty at this point he's starting to feel like a Peggie, it's upsetting.

He changes in the room Joseph had given to him upstairs, and Jacob's clothes fit well enough, though they're a little wide, because Rook is long where Jacob is bulky. Jacob throws him a look of amusement when they pass in the hall, which is unfair because Rook's the one wearing Jacob's jeans, and no underwear, so the extra mockery is unnecessary.

Peanut's still asleep next to the couch, in the basket Faith provided. Rook really should have changed her into some night clothes. But he has another outfit he can put her in tomorrow, it has a cartoon bee on it, and a bunch of silly bee puns. He thinks Kim would like it. He's going to show it to her, when they get her back, because they will. They will get her back. He's stuck somewhere in that thought, refusing to let it do anything but turn over and over in his head, when something tells him he's not alone any more. It's too quiet to be John, not solid enough to be Jacob but with the same strange weight, Joseph then. He's proven right when the other man drifts forward like he knows he's been noticed, close enough to Rook's shoulder for their clothes to brush.

Joseph watches Peanut for a while, before stretching a hand out, trailing fingers gently over her rounded, sleeping cheek, and the unruly little tuft of hair on her head, like he can't help himself. 

"I had hoped there would be children again, now that the Collapse has passed. That people would feel free to join again, to make vows, to start families. Though it's not always easy to turn soldiers into fathers, and mothers. Not when there are always more battles to be fought."

Joseph draws away from her, expression lost for the briefest moment.

"I understand your hesitance in letting me touch her," he adds quietly. There's no accusation there, no bite to the words, just an acknowledgement of the past. 

Rook had hoped he was keeping that subtle enough to pass notice. But he still remembers, can't help but remember, the confession Joseph made to him, when he was on his knees in a dirty cell. He remembers all of the ways that this family is broken, all the mistakes they've made, the ways they've torn their own lives apart to get here. 

"But I have no intention of hurting her," Joseph tells him. "We are all where we need to be."

Rook lets the silence lay for a long stretch, but this isn't something he feels he can leave alone. He's seen too much to pretend that the Seeds are different people. He's heard too many of Joseph's sermons, before and after. The biggest difference now seems to be that Eden's Gate saves its madness, and its judgement, for its own followers. The Collapse has been replaced with a new path, a new journey to discover what God wants for them. 

"And are you happy with all the choices you made that brought you here?" Rook asks. He wonders if Joseph has ever been asked, if anyone has ever dared to ask him.

"No," Joseph says simply. "But they were my choices, and I made them, and now I'm here, and so are you." 

Rook still doesn't quite know how, considering all the seemingly impossible things that had to happen to get them to this moment. Rook was there for all of them, he made all the choices, and most of them seemed like the right ones at the time, and yet how could anyone have predicted this?

"We do seem to end up there a lot don't we?" Rook says. Though part of him can't help but worry about what it means.

Joseph smiles, and it's a strange expression on his face, like he's still trying to get it right. Or maybe it just doesn't fit with the version on him that Rook remembers best.

"I knew our purpose wasn't finished, that there was more we needed to do together." Joseph always sounds so certain of everything, like he always knows what he's meant to do, right or wrong. Whether that's true or not, Rook will admit to being a little jealous of it. Because he never knows what the fuck he's supposed to be doing from one day to the next. A little certainty would make a nice change.

"I'm afraid I rarely have the comfort of knowing that I'm doing the right thing," Rook admits. "Or whether I'm supposed to be doing anything at all."

"Protecting your family is often a road with no end," Joseph says, still watching Peanut's hand open and shut in her sleep.

"You have a uniquely difficult family," Rook reminds him. 

"And you have none," Joseph says quietly. 

Rook doesn't think it's meant cruelly, it feels more like some sort of weird suggestion that Rook should find some somewhere, adopt some, join someone else's. As if it's just that easy.

"Do you still feel like you saved them?" Rook asks. "Your brothers, Faith."

"I _know_ that I saved them." Joseph turns to face him, like this is something he needs Rook to hear. "When I found them they were all on the path to destruction, damaged and looking for purpose, looking for meaning. We had all lost each other, we were all searching. God told me to bring them here. God told me what needed to be done, and if I was not shown what would come after, it was for a reason."

Rook wants to remind him that most people don't get a plan to follow, most people barely get a sense of direction.

"Yet, I did my best to break everything your family built," he says instead. It's not an apology, he doesn't think it's an apology, isn't sure that he even owes Joseph one, after everything they did. "I would have done worse, if not for everything that happened after."

"And yet we are all still here," Joseph reasons. "You were given choices too, in the end, and you came to us. A family protects each other."

"I'm not your family," Rook reminds him.

Joseph looks at him without speaking, before tipping his head towards Peanut.

"And you are not hers," he says softly. Which hurts, a little, more than Rook expected it to.

"She's defenceless," Rook argues. "She's my responsibility. I don't expect anyone else to stay with me out of obligation. "

"You are meant to be here," Joseph insists, and Rook honestly has to wonder if there's any convincing him otherwise.

"I'm not sure I'm happy being shoved from disaster to disaster because I have a _purpose_ ," Rook tells him, not for the first time. "With no choice and no warning, that doesn't seem very fair, to me or anyone around me."

Joseph curls a hand around Rook's wrist, an unexpected warmth that he lets close and squeeze gently. Joseph uses the hold to draw him in, then lifts Rook's hand pointedly towards the basket.

"You are here to protect the child, you brought her here to protect her. This is the purpose that you have been given today, would you set it down, would you give it to anyone else?" Joseph's hand slowly unwraps, draws away.

Rook sighs where he's stood, because Joseph already knows the answer to that. He's too good at reading people, and Rook suspects Joseph knows him far better than he admits to.

"Some things are important," Joseph continues. "They must be done, whether we want them or not, whether we enjoy them or not. They take us where we need to go, if that makes it easier for you to understand, easier for you to accept. Think of it not as a purpose, or a duty, something that cannot thrown off or denied, but as a human need for connection. To find a place where people will accept you, and love you, no matter who you are, or what you've done."

Rook's weirdly thrown by that, until he realises that that's what Joseph wanted from the beginning, what he tried to build, for himself and his family. If they'd all been less damaged, it might have all turned out differently. Joseph might never have come here, and the entire county might have been destroyed. Maybe no matter what choice you make, someone always gets screwed.

"It seems God never intended for us to prevail against you. He intended for us to join together."

"If you can't beat them, join them?" Rook says, amused by how easy that feels. Which, granted, is much less poetic than the way Joseph tends to phrase his thoughts. But Joseph smiles, slowly lifts his arms as if he wants to encourage Rook forward.

"If you like."

Rook finds himself taking a step, closing the space between them, and Joseph's hands are warm on his face, where they slide and then rest, slower and more considering than when he does this with his brothers. As if Joseph has still not entirely decided what Rook is going to be, how they're going to fit together. With Rook's refusal to be a follower, to be one of his children. Joseph draws Rook's head down slowly, settles them together, strangely intimate, in a way that Rook never had with his own family. Or anyone really.

Joseph tips, forehead moving back and they're so close, angles awkward, so all Rook can see are Joseph's eyes and his nose.

"You have boundary issues, you know that, right?" Rook tells him. It's probably a good job that Rook doesn't.

Joseph hums agreement, but it occurs to Rook that he still hasn't pulled away. A normal person would have stepped back, protested the touching, told Joseph not to do it again. But maybe a normal person wouldn't have found themself here in the first place.

"Think about it," Joseph says. His head moves, and Rook feels the press of a mouth against his forehead, strangely unthreatening, before Joseph's hands slip away.

It's late enough that Rook lifts Peanut's basket and carries her upstairs with him. He settles her gently by the side of the bed, watches her sigh in her sleep before throwing Jacob's shirt on the chair, and stretching out on the bed. It occurs to him that he hasn't slept in a bed for three, four days? Longer? It feels nice, he's going to fall asleep here before he means to, he knows it. But there are more than a hundred Peggies keeping watch, so it's probably ok.

Someone breathes laughter at him, and he's forced to open his eyes again.

John is in the doorway, holding two mugs. He looks far too pleased at having caught Rook napping.

"I used to be harder to sneak up on," Rook complains.

"I literally just walked through the door," John says.

Rook laughs and holds a hand out. John comes close enough to pass one of the mugs over, then settle on the bed next to him and sigh something relieved. Rook doesn't blame him, Joseph can be hard work. He can't imagine being related to him, worrying about disappointing him, then facing his disappointment that comes with tense and unsettling biblical allegories. 

"You smell like my brother," John complains. Which surprises Rook into laughter, nearly makes him spill coffee everywhere, which John seems to think is his own fault. He's tempted to ask which one, since he's wearing Jacob's clothes, but Joseph is the one who'd spent most of the evening pressed against him. This is what Rook means, every choice he's made has felt like the right one, and yet here he is four days later, looking like he's lost his mind.

But John clearly isn't that bothered about Rook's terrible choices, tipping gently against his shoulder, legs pressed up against Rook's own.

"Joseph says he spoke to you."

Rook nods. 

"He did, and do conversations with him always come with vague suggestions that God wants you to do things, and unnecessary touching?"

John makes a low sound of amusement.

"Yes, though I suspect he's just being indulgent in your case," he adds. "He thinks you have a purpose together, that you're meant to be here, with him, with us."

Rook wonders if that's the sort of thing he needs to worry about, that he needs to protest against. Or whether it's something that's just going to keep happening, in some strange way, whether he wants it to or not. Still, stubbornly pushing against things that other people tell him can't be stopped has sort of become his thing.

"It would be nice if you visited when the county wasn't full of smoke and gunfire though," John says, as if it's something he brings up to Rook a lot, rather than the first time he's suggested it. 

"Just stop by the ranch for coffee?" Rook asks, gesturing with his mug.

"Yes," John says. "For coffee, or pancakes, or to tell me about your stupid day arresting drunks for urinating in the street."

Rook laughs, because his life hasn't been that normal for a while now. Even when a day goes by without a single crazy thing happened, it doesn't quite feel like it used to. Rook's starting to wonder if it ever will.

"Are you making me these pancakes?" Rook asks, because he feels like that's an important point he needs to consider.

John pulls a face at him, an answer in that ridiculous curl of mouth.

"You already know where the kitchen is."

He thinks they're both ignoring the fact that most of John's kitchen is currently full of debris and bullet holes.

"So you're inviting me round to make you pancakes? That doesn't seem very fair."

"I know when to make best use of other people's talents," John reminds him. Which makes Rook laugh again, because of all the talents Rook has, his basic-ass pancakes are not one of them. Sometimes if he's feeling adventurous he will cut a strawberry in half and stick it on top. Fruit is important, and he has to make a good impression. He has a goddaughter now.

Rook drinks his coffee and toes his boots off, lets them fall off the end of the bed.

"If I'm lucky she'll sleep through the night," Rook says. "I'm pretty sure I've fucked up her sleep schedule at least twice."

"You've brought her through three gunfights unharmed," John points out. "She'll be fine."

"Please don't tell her parents that," Rook says around his mug. "They don't need to know that part." He's already worried about whether any of this is going to have traumatised Peanut's little brain. Because according to Kim at this age they basically just absorb everything around them. Rook is not - Rook is not a good role model. No one should be following his example.

"I'm still surprised you let me hold her," John admits, quietly, as if he'd been holding the question for a while. "Since I spent months trying to kill you, and I'm not exactly known for my calm disposition."

There's almost an accusation there, as if part of John wants - or expects - to be judged, to be deemed untrustworthy.

"True, but then you had to spend three months locked underground with roughly four hundred people who hated you, while the whole world shook. I feel like that was something of a self-control trial by fire." Rook remembers thinking that at the time. Of exactly what the enforced captivity would do to a man like John Seed. And part of him had been right, it had been messy and not always clean, but everyone had made it out alive.

John gives a long, breathy laugh, which sounds like reluctant agreement.

"I've been working on my issues since then," he says quietly.

"I've noticed," Rook admits. "I've been watching you."

John tips his head back until he can raise an eyebrow at him, before he laughs and looks away again, like he doesn't want Rook to admit or deny anything.

"I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying I'm not occasionally still fucking up. I still need - I still take confession. But there are things I want to do, for my brothers, for...both of them, things I need to be stable for. I faked it very well once, but this time it's going to be different. This time I'm going to give back, which I can't do if I give in to my -"

"Demons," Rook offers.

John winces. "Let's not phrase it like that," he asks quietly. 

"Sorry, impulses then."

John nods agreement.

"I've made poor choices, choices that I thought were helping me, but were in fact just carving pieces of me away. Pieces I didn't think I needed at the time, pieces I thought were unsalvageable, or pieces that were too painful to cut around. I thought I was making myself strong, I thought I was repairing the damage that had been done to me, and I couldn't see what I was turning into. But then Joseph found me, he found me and accepted me for the mess I was. He reminded me how to believe, he gave me a family, gave me purpose, gave me direction, gave me strength."

John stops, sighs, as if he's about to confess something he's not proud of.

"I gave him money," he says simply. "It was the only thing I had to give and I gave it to him. But I was still cutting pieces away, he could see it, and he warned me that it would kill me if I didn't stop. And it nearly did, you shot me out of the sky, and you were there when I landed. You were ready to kill me, and I would have deserved it." John stops talking, abruptly.

Rook slides their feet together, because he can't dispute that, he can't take it back. John doesn't seem angry though, instead there's a quiet sort of surprise, as if he's still not sure why Rook didn't, why he pulled him off the ground and shoved him into a car when the sky caught fire and fell on them. As if John Seed can't understand why people keep trying to save him.

"What about you?" John asks eventually. "How did you get like this? And that's not a rhetorical question, I'm genuinely curious. You're a deputy, in a county in the middle of nowhere, no military background, and we had the best resources that money could buy. Yet you made yourself an obstacle in our path, one which would not be moved aside, or destroyed. Everywhere we pushed into, and every time we reached out a hand you were there. One man shouldn't have been able to push back against us. Shouldn't have been able to do what you did. You were too..." John makes an annoyed noise when an appropriate word for what Rook is doesn't come to him. He frowns at Rook like it's his fault he's so impossible. 

Rook sighs. "I don't know, I think that was mostly an accident."

John lifts an eyebrow.

"You're the way you are because of an accident? I find that hard to believe. Unless you were rebuilt in some sort of secret government experiment." John pauses to look at him. "That would explain so much about you."

Rook smiles and shakes his head.

"My story isn't half as interesting as everyone thinks it is," he tells him.

"You still owe me a confession," John says quietly, nudges at Rook's heel until his leg wobbles.

Which is probably true.

"I guess it's more like a consequence then," Rook says. He sighs, because he doesn't really talk about himself, it always feels so awkward. But it's not like any of it matters any more. "My dad was a busy man, focused, not a lot of time for people - it was difficult to get his attention, though I don't think I ever stopped trying. And I was a kid, so I tried way too hard. I did everything, as enthusiastically as I could. As many things as I could find to do around the county. Archery, climbing, shooting, swimming, running, knife throwing, I signed up every time there was a class, I went on every field trip. I brought home certificates, awards, trophies, had my stupid face put in the paper a dozen times."

They can probably still be found in the archives, Rook's stupid grinning face above whatever he'd won.

"I just wanted something I could show him, some sort of achievement that I could give him. And I gave him all of them, everything I ever won. I would have been happy with a 'well done' or a 'you did a great job.' I thought if I just picked the right thing, if I worked hard enough, if I just knew what it was he wanted from me, then I'd get something back. That he'd be impressed, or happy, or proud. Towards the end I would have taken pleasantly surprised."

Rook finishes his coffee.

"I'm guessing that you never got it," John says slowly. "That he left, or died."

"Car accident when I was seventeen," Rook says, and it feels like such a long time ago. "But by then I was pretty good at almost everything, and I'd gotten used to being on my own. I picked up things easily, I learned how to be persistent." Rook sets his empty mug down and shrugs. "I never did work out what it was he wanted out of me, if anything."

John slides just a touch closer, head tipped back next to Rook's on the wall.

"Sometimes we're not supposed to understand the people who raise us." He kicks at Rook's bare feet in something that feels like it wants to be reassurance. "Sometimes we just survive them."


	11. Chapter 11

It's the first time in days that Rook hasn't woken up feeling like someone tried to twist him in half during the night. He's more comfortable than he probably deserves, whole body a lazy sprawl of contentment, feet all the way on the bed for a change, arm flung out across the wide expanse of sheet, the warm, comfortable weight of another person tipped against him.

Rook opens his eyes and looks down.

That actually makes sense, since he didn't remember John leaving, after their long, meandering conversation that gradually got more confused, and made less sense the more tired they got. Both of their empty mugs are on the nightstand, John's vest is flung over his shirt, on the wooden chair at the end of the bed. His bare feet rest against Rook's own, head rolled into his shoulder, and Rook can feel the warm flare of every exhale against his jaw.

He should probably be more worried about how close they're getting, how easily they're slipping towards something that feels unexpected, but weighty and undeniable. Or maybe it's not so unexpected, if he's being honest. But Rook doesn't want to worry, he doesn't want to have to second guess every moment of unexpected, surprising strangeness that enters his life. He can want this, no matter what anyone tells him, no matter what's come before, he can want this. Or maybe Rook's just forgotten how to want normal things, maybe he wants abnormal, questionably dangerous things now, and John has always felt like something that might explode at a moment's notice.

Maybe that only matters if he wants it to.

Rook tips his head down to look at John, shirt rustled half open in his sleep, all black lines, and red scars, and soft edges that only show up when you get close. And it's hard to avoid the suggestion at this point that John wants him to get close.

The shifting movement of his shoulder must shake John out of sleep, because he feels the other man tense against him, before he tips his head back and focuses on Rook, looks briefly surprised, before one side of his mouth ticks up.

Rook's about to protest that he hadn't been staring, that he hadn't meant to wake him. But John's already moving, reaching up with a lazy hand to grasp at Rook's jaw. John pulls him down, until he barely has to tilt up to fit their mouths together, and it only takes a second for that moment of pressure to slide into something that's definitely a kiss. 

Rook curves a hand round the back of his head, pulls him all the way in, makes it obvious that he's more than ok with this. 

John breathes a sigh, then digs his fingers into Rook's shirt, stitches snapping under the force. The bed protests, gently and quietly when John slides to his knees, moves over him, all weight and sleepy-warmth, and his mouth goes hard and demanding between one slide and the next.

"You're going to kill me," John complains, but he kisses Rook again before he can reply, before he can protest, or agree, and fuck, Rook hadn't even known how much he wanted this until John is over him, pressing him back into the sheets, mouth hot and -

There's a loud, excited collection of vowel noises, from somewhere next to the bed.

John goes very still, then breathes out a laugh. 

"Well," he says quietly. "That's officially the first time that's happened to me."

Rook laughs, eases him back, so he can turn sideways, peer over the side of the bed.

Peanut has the blanket bunched in her hands, and she's shaking it enthusiastically. When she looks up and spots Rook she grins and pops her mouth at him, jiggles her arms and legs.

"Good morning," he says, which makes Peanut squeal excitably. "Fine, fine, I know when you want attention, you're a demanding little pumpkin, aren't you?" Rook straightens enough to lean down and scoop her up, before carefully sitting her on the bed between them.

Peanut spots John and wobbles excitably, which makes her tip backwards until she bumps Rook's bracing leg. She tries again, this time with support and manages to get a hand up just far enough to touch John's beard. Until John laughs and catches her hands, she clearly doesn't mind being caught though, all happy noises and kicking feet. She directs her attention to the rumpled sheet underneath her, picks at the creases with her fingers. Peanut doesn't seem impatient to be fed, she's just awake early, and not grumpy for a change. Curiously pulling the sheet into her fist and then trying to drag it up and eat it, while she's still sitting on it. A mission that's doomed to failure.

"I suppose I should make her breakfast," Rook says. "She'll start complaining eventually."

Rook lets her amuse herself for a minute, swivelling her to rest against John's leg while he washes, and finds his shirt - technically Jacob's shirt - and boots.

John watches him lift Peanut with a strangely contained sort of disappointment, and Rook hovers, uncertainly. Because there's something about being interrupted, when you're having a moment, that leaves the ground feeling a little unsteady beneath you. Leaves you wondering if the other person - John reaches up and folds fingers into his shirt again, like he can feel his indecision. He draws him back down, far enough to kiss. Which Rook is definitely going to consider something with possibilities, in an otherwise fucking awful week so far.

Though he ends up laughing against John's mouth, when Peanut bashes at them both impatiently and makes a grumpy collection of noises.

"Yeah, I knew it wouldn't take you long."

He leaves John sprawled out on his bed, which seems to be some sort of further judgement to how his decisions only make his life more interesting as time goes by.

When Rook gets downstairs, Joseph is sitting by himself at the kitchen table, though the two empty mugs suggest that Jacob has already been and gone. Rook has to briefly wonder whether Joseph knows that his youngest brother spent all night in Rook's room. If he knows exactly where they seem to be headed, and if he objects. Eden's Gate still has regular sermons about the sins of the world, about temptations to be avoided.

He eyes the row of empty bottles that have been washed, the neat stack of formula, and the delicate spoons. He suspects Joseph is responsible.

"Will you hold her while I make a bottle?" Rook asks quietly.

Joseph blinks surprise, before raising his arms like Rook has given him a sacred duty. Peanut seems happy enough to be passed over, she half-sits in Joseph's lap, sticks a hand in her mouth and then pats it on his shirt in her own flavour of introduction. Before she seems to realise that Joseph has a beard too, and considers it her duty to acquire said beard for herself. Rook really has no idea where her obsession comes from. 

Joseph introduces himself quietly to Peanut, in what Rook thinks is far too solemn a tone, while she waves a hand, babbles agreement, and pokes at his beard, fingers closing and closing where it's just too short to catch. She seems to realise that's not going to work, and transfers her attention to his glasses, which are too far up to touch. The next time Rook looks at her, she's trying to pull herself to a stand, with unsteady baby legs, so she can reach them. Joseph doesn't seem to be too bothered about it though, adjusting his hands carefully so she can't fall.

"She'll pull them off of you, if she gets a good grip," Rook warns. "And you'll get them back covered in baby fingerprints and dribble."

It occurs to him that he's never seen Joseph without his glasses, when the sun was out. He'd thought they were an affectation, but Rook's honestly starting to wonder if he has a genuine sensitivity to light.

"She is a very determined child," Joseph agrees. Peanut almost has enough self-control to get herself to her feet, but doesn't seem to have enough balance or strength to support herself. She's letting Joseph do most of the work for her, and her grasping hands have made it as far as his ears. If she works out that Joseph has long hair, he's probably in trouble. Though Rook has never seen him wearing it in anything other than that bun/folded ponytail, and can't help but wonder if he does anything else with it.

"She gets that from her parents," Rook says. "She doesn't like to be told no."

Joseph hums something that sounds like agreement. Though there's an amused edge to his expression - while he watches Peanut wobble and grip at him, making little noises of determination - that suggests he's the type of man who would find saying no to her unexpectedly difficult.

Peanut has noticed Rook shaking the bottle, and is trying to grin in his direction. Joseph turns her so she can see better, one hand lifted to stroke curious fingers over the fluffiness of her hair. It's developing a little twist. Rook hasn't been brushing it, or really doing anything to it, because he hasn't seen the point. But he's starting to wonder if he should have at least made the effort.

"Dudududududu," Peanut says, then waves a hand like she can drag Rook in and make him feed her by force. When this doesn't work she tips her head back and babbles at Joseph, as if asking if he'll help her.

Rook sets the bottle on the table and gives an exaggerated sigh, lowering his hands to take her.

Joseph expression is oddly flat when he hands her back. His fingers curl at Rook's wrist, tighten for a brief moment and then drop free.

"Excuse me," Joseph says simply, throat gravel dry. Before he pushes his chair back, and leaves the kitchen.

Rook feeds Peanut in the quiet warmth of Joseph's kitchen, listening to the sound of doors opening and shutting, of quiet voices that don't always seem to be talking to other people. Peanut gives up before the bottle's even half empty, and Rook has a moment to worry that being around him has traumatised her enough to fuck up her feeding schedule. But she seems happy enough, head bumping against his chest and neck, talking to him quietly, fingers gripping his shirt like she wants a hug.

Rook curves his other hand around her, gently rubs her back until she sighs, and relaxes against him. 

"I'm trying, Peanut, I'm trying to find out where your mom and dad are." He just promised he'd take care of her first, that she would be his first priority, no matter what happened. But Kim couldn't have expected anything like this, not so soon after Eden's Gate, and then asteroids. It's not that Rook doesn't want to be here with Peanut, because if he wasn't he'd worry about her constantly - check in on her frequently and he'd probably be doing all of this on his own. He just doesn't feel like this is something he's good at. All the messy things are going on outside, across the county, the things that Grace, and Sharky, and Hurk, and Jess, and Eli are doing, they're the parts that Rook is good at, and he feels like he's abandoned them this time.

He changes Peanut and puts her down to play, because keeping her to something close to her original schedule feels like the only control he has at the moment, the only thing that might reassure her that everything is ok, even though she's in a strange place, surrounded by strange people and hasn't seen her parents for more than four days. Also, he forgot her bath again.

Rook's already made himself a coffee and he's half way through it when Jacob slips inside, air-chilled and unsurprised to find Rook in the kitchen, or to find Peanut carefully making her way across the floor. He stops long enough to lean down and turn her around, which makes her laugh and bounce her legs, and head back the way she came.

"The teams are back," Jacob says.

Rook makes him a coffee, gesturing with milk and sugar to find out exactly how he likes it. He suspects Jacob left a message for John and Joseph, because they show up in the kitchen, trailing Faith, who veers away once she spots Peanut trying to escape off of her blanket again. She's still due forty minutes of exercise and playtime. But now she's discovered how to have her own adventures it's mostly just exercise.

Joseph looks thinned but calm, and he comes to stand next to Rook, John slipping in on the other side, opposite Jacob, as if they've been making room for each other their whole lives. Though Rook knows they were separated for most of it. He's not sure where he's supposed to fit, though there seems to be a space left for him anyway.

It seems rude not to slide into it.

Jacob sets a phone on the table. It doesn't seem to be his, so Rook assumes it's from one of the Peggie teams that have been searching the woods. Jacob leaves his thumb in a position where he can scroll through the pictures he's just opened. Which reminds Rook that his phone has been charging all night. He needs to get it back at some point and contact the Sheriff.

"Armstrong and Black took Marcus's group into the woods, and found this," Jacob says.

There's a photo of a black helicopter on the screen, or the remains of one. The whole thing is jammed tight in the middle of a knit of snapped trees, like it hit the ground hard. 

Joseph, Rook and John all try and lean in at the same time, John has enough sense to stop halfway, swivel awkwardly round to the other side. Rook is already mostly down, but Joseph doesn't seem to mind being pressed in next to him over the table.

Jacob skips ahead, pictures of the crash from every angle.

The rotors are mostly gone, the tail snapped off and tilted up the wrong way. It's too damaged to make out any markings it might have had. The inside is a jumbled mess, dangling radio, broken headsets, broken laptops, cracked metal cases that have spilled their contents out, pieces of equipment that Rook doesn't recognise. But most of the stuff inside looks like it was tossed haphazardly around the crash site, a lot of it crushed or splintered, like it hit the ground too hard. There's dried blood on the metal inside the craft, from the pilot, Rook assumes. Whether he survived or not isn't immediately obvious, but there's enough blood that he was probably badly injured, so likely taken by animals either way. Considering how deep in the woods this is.

Rook still remembers what it felt like to come down in a helicopter, the freefall of it, the way the world was all sudden drop and then punching, noisy misery. He remembers being upside down, while the world burned, grabbing for voices in the darkness. Until Joseph had appeared, told him no one was coming to save him. And he'd been right, no one had come. But Rook had saved himself. Looking back on it, it's amazing everyone made it out alive.

"As far as we can tell, this is what Burt Conrad found in the woods," Jacob says. "About a week before our new visitors came looking for it."

"He took something from the crash site?" Joseph draws the phone closer, so he can scan the photo, and Rook doesn't miss the fact that he briefly drags his sunglasses down to do it.

"It seems likely," Jacob says with a nod. "Almost everything left is destroyed or unusable. Though a few questions to one of my men tell me that it mostly looks like equipment for measuring weather. There are no official documents we could gather, it's mostly instruction manuals, and there's nothing else about the site that should have started a full scale assault. It's just an unmarked helicopter that came down in the middle of nowhere."

"So whatever Burt found, he told Nick about it, or gave it to Nick," Rook reasons. "Because they didn't find it at the crash site. But Nick can't have told them anything yet. They wouldn't still be looking, they wouldn't be trying to pick up his daughter as leverage."

"These are professionals," Jacob points out. "They would have broken him by now, one way or the other." Jacob doesn't remind him that they have Kim as well, he doesn't have to.

"I'm pretty sure they'd rather die than give away anything that would lead them to Peanut," Rook says stiffly, because he doesn't want to think about anything happening to Nick, or Kim, when he's been in no position to stop it.

"Sometimes dying isn't an option," Jacob says.

"I think if they could brainwash Nick into telling them, then they would have done it by now." Also, Rook really wants to point out that brainwashing is something of a specialist skill, and not something that every soldier is going to pull out every time they have a difficult prisoner. It's probably a good job that none of them have access, or enough knowledge, to make use of the Bliss.

"Conditioning," Jacob grumbles.

"I don't know why the distinction bothers you so much," John mutters from Jacob's side. As if this is something that's come up a lot.

"Because it's inaccurate." Jacob folds his arms and looks at his brother, though John seems to be completely immune to Jacob's glare.

Rook pulls the phone towards him while the brothers are having a moment. There's an arm settled over his back, and judging by the fact that he can see everyone else's, it's one of Joseph's. There's enough room at the table for Joseph to have claimed his own space, but he seems content to be leant into Rook.

"This doesn't look like it was carrying soldiers," Rook offers. "But there is a lot of empty space. Even if they loaded all the equipment into the back, it wouldn't fill all of the seats."

"You think that there were other passengers?" Joseph asks, tilting the phone slightly and sliding back half a dozen photos, to get back to the wide shot of the crash. But there's too much destruction to see if anyone else could have left.

"If there were, where did they go?" Rook frowns down at the picture. "Why aren't the - shit it would be easier if these assholes had a name we could use - why aren't they looking for them too, asking around, searching houses. They're clearly still looking for something though. They were clearly still looking even after they snatched Nick."

Joseph sighs like he doesn't have the answer to that.

"So if Jacob's right, then Nick either can't tell them what they want, because he doesn't know, because he never knew. Or they think Nick can still be helpful with discovering where Burt hid it, which also makes no sense, because I don't think Burt Conrad trusted anyone." Something is missing here, they've sent out too many men, spent too much money, pulled together too many resources, for it to just be about Nick, or even about the helicopter.

"Either way, this doesn't make sense," John complains over Rook's own thoughts. "You don't send three teams of men after one baby, not for leverage, definitely not after you lost two of them. Rook is formidable on his own, Rook and Jacob together. That's no longer a stupid waste of manpower that's fucking suicide."

"It is," Rook agrees, and doesn't miss the way Jacob leans in, or the look he gives him where they meet over the table, heads down, phone under both their fingers. 

But something about what John said is bothering him. Because what if they've already worked out for themselves where whatever they want is. What if it's not about Nick any more? What if it hadn't been about Nick at all?

Rook tugs the phone gently out of Jacob's fingers, and Jacob surprises him by letting him have it. He scrolls back until he can find the burst-open cases. They're all fairly small, important looking, the sort that you can lock and keep in a safe. 

Rook leaves the table and heads into the living room, where Faith is playing with Peanut, bouncing Toby on her nose until she giggles and covers her face with her hands. Faith looks up when she sees him, smiles a question.

"Can I have Toby for a minute?" Rook asks.

Faith nods, hands him over.

Peanut watches him take her favourite toy with a confused expression, makes an 'UH' noises of complaint and waves a hand at him.

"You'll get him right back," Rook promises.

Peanut half-crawls in his direction, until Faith laughs and scoops her up, blows a noise into her stomach, which makes her laugh and squirm, tiny hands batting against Faith's hair. Until she's bounced and sat down again, arms held up like she wants Faith to do it again.

Rook takes Toby to the table, very carefully squeezes him, until his thumbs encounter a hard line.

"They're not looking for the baby," he says simply. 

There's a click, and John offers him a knife, which he use to gently pop the banana's stitching. Pressing the filling outwards reveals a plastic case, Rook eases it out into his hand, holds it up so everyone can see.

"And the question becomes, what the fuck is on this flash drive that an entire army of assholes wants it back?"


	12. Chapter 12

Joseph takes Toby's sad, lopsided body and sutures him shut with bright red thread, leaving a tidy little line down his back, before presenting his unharmed body back to Peanut, much to her squealing, impatient delight. She immediately drags him in and starts chewing on his fluffy, yellow head.

"I think we can all agree that Nick Rye is a fucking idiot," John says harshly. He looks more angry than Rook has seen him so far, pulled in tight, mouth sharp at the edges. But he manages to contain the weight of it, to let it free only in short, punched-out words. "I honestly can't believe he would have done something so stupid. That he would have put his own daughter in danger."

Rook shakes his head. Because the part of him that knows Nick, that spent months with him, refuses to believe that he was responsible for this.

"He wouldn't have done," he tells them all. "That's the quickest way to put Peanut in danger, and he worships her. He wouldn't have wanted this anywhere around his daughter. Why the fuck would any man take this home and hide it near his baby?" 

You'd have to be insane. You'd have to not even be thinking about the consequences. 

"You think someone else was responsible." It's not a question, coming from Joseph, it's more of an encouragement to follow the thought.

Rook does, and he really hopes that he's right. Though he's honestly not sure who else would have had access to Peanut and her toys. Nick and Kim don't go much further with Peanut than the airfield, or into town.

"I don't know who could have done? Conrad maybe, it seems like the kind of paranoid, insanity he'd be capable of. But I don't think he went into town much, at least I don't remember ever seeing him there. I don't think he was the visiting sort either? Someone would have noticed if he showed up at Nick and Kim's house, surely. They would had to have been there. Because Peanut doesn't go anywhere without Toby. But I genuinely can't think of anyone else." No one else that's even peripherally involved in all this, no one that would have had a reason. No one who knows Peanut would have put her in danger - not without Rook having something to say about it.

"He's lucky he's dead," Jacob says simply. He's dropped to a crouch, to stop Peanut escaping off her blanket again, one hand under her stomach, lifting her just enough that her legs can still shuffle along the floor, they're just not taking her anywhere. She seems more amused than annoyed, eventually laughing and slumping onto Jacob's arm, dribbling on his sleeve.

When he straightens next to Rook he's holding her properly, Toby still clutched in one small fist. 

"Ooog," she says, and shakes the banana until she eventually loses her grip, and Jacob has to catch it with the other hand. 

Rook unclips the drive. "So, who has a laptop?"

It turns out that Joseph has a laptop, though John takes it with such an easy confidence that Rook suspects he's the one who's been desperately trying to modernise Joseph's Doomsday cult into something more technology friendly. Rook's not sure how that's working out, now the Doomsday has been and gone. Though it's probably a miracle the technology made it through at all.

They all lean in behind John's chair, Jacob a weight against Rook's right shoulder, close enough that Peanut's now trying to hold onto them both. 

John shoves the drive in, scans it, tries to open it. A box immediately pops up, explaining that the drive requires a password to be read.

"So it's locked," Jacob says flatly.

"We're not getting in without a password," John agrees.

"Damn it," Rook grumbles out. "I think I sent the only person who could have helped us with that into space."

John turns very slowly to frown curiousity at him, and even Jacob looks puzzled.

"It's a long story," Rook says. "And I'm not sure you'd even believe me." Which he'll admit to himself is kind of funny, considering what Joseph has managed to make half a county's worth of people believe. It's funny considering all the madness that has happened to them already. That Larry Parker remains a subject Rook just doesn't know where to start with.

But this information seems like exactly the sort of thing that needs to be shared, and Rook's left it long enough already.

"I have to update the Sheriff, and Grace." There's a better than strong possibility that Grace is actually getting some sleep. She's been on the go almost as much as Rook over the last few days. He's only thinking about it after he's already dialed her number. But she answers in less than three rings, and her voice is smooth and immediately ready to react to any insanity he wants to throw at her. Rook doesn't know whether to feel immensely grateful for his friends and tell them they're amazing more often, or just apologise to them constantly. 

He could probably do both.

"Hey, Rook, what do you need?" She doesn't sound like she just woke up. But that means nothing. 

"How's the reconnaissance been going?" he asks.

"More exciting than life has been for a while, not quite as exciting as my life was when I spent it crashing across the county with you though. I have to admit, it's a little weird to be fighting with the Peggies, instead of against them, not that you can tell them apart nowadays, they're almost pretty now. How's Baby Rye?"

"Baby Rye is crawling now, which means I'm in danger of losing her constantly," Rook tells her, which Grace seems to find amusing. 

"How's she finding the Seed's notorious company?"

Rook has to laugh at that, because he's pretty sure that some adults have cried more when in the presence of just one Seed. Let alone all four of them. Peanut has been taking this amazingly well, truth be told.

"She adores all of them, I think it's the beards." Excluding Faith, who doesn't have a beard, but that doesn't matter when she looks like a fairy princess come to life.

"No accounting for taste," Grace drawls, and Rook suspects she's making a judgment on more than Peanut there, but there's a wry amusement underneath. Grace is one of the few people that Rook has never objected to telling him when he's being terrible and making possibly bad decisions. A responsibility that he suspects she enjoys immensely, and would probably abuse more often, if she knew how much Rook genuinely trusted her opinion.

"And our new guests," he asks. "I hope you've been making them feel welcome."

"Hurk has been making sure they don't feel ignored," Grace agrees. "If you look outside you'll probably still see the smoke, that's pretty much all that's left of their camp to the North. The base they have in the old mine is where most of them still seem to be holed up now, though they have a second base near the old ranger station, traps set up all around it. They're shooting at anything that comes close now. That might be our fault, I don't think they're enjoying our particular brand of hospitality. They have helicopters, big ones, but they don't land for long enough for us to steal them away, and you know our plane situation isn't the best."

Rook leans away from the phone a little.

"Seriously, next time the bunkers get a plane hanger, is that possible? Is that even a thing you could do?"

John makes an irritated noise from the kitchen, where's he's making coffee with a comfortable sort of rhythm that says he's done it often enough to not have to pay attention.

"I pressed for that, apparently it was too expensive and unnecessary." 

"It was, and it would have added four months to construction that we didn't have," Jacob points out from the couch. He has Peanut on his lap, and she's playing with his rabbit's foot with a fascinated sort of amazement. Jacob keeps gently dissuading her every time she tries to put it in her mouth.

"We haven't seen many deserters though," Grace continues. Which is a surprise, considering how many they must have put down by now. "And these aren't fanatics. Someone is throwing money at this like it's fucking water."

"Which usually suggests there's a lot of money to be made?" Rook guesses. "Or lost."

Grace hums agreement.

"They keep their secrets fucking tight though, Jacob's men have snatched a few of them, half drowned them in Bliss and they don't know a thing. They just know they're getting paid, and they're getting paid a lot. And they're pissed that you've chosen to bed down on a heavily fortified island, with an army of religious fanatics. They've made that pretty obvious."

Rook's almost amused at the thought of them taking it personally. When this time around it isn't even about him.

"You know how much I like to make life interesting for everyone, Grace."

"I'm just glad it's not us for a change," John says. He comes close and lowers a mug into Rook's grateful hand, and apparently John has noticed how he takes his coffee as well.

"Side note," Rook says to Grace. "I just found a flash drive hidden inside one of Peanut's toys. We think it's what Burt Conrad found in the woods, out of one of those smashed lockboxes by the crash."

Grace is quiet for a long moment.

"Inside Peanut's - Jesus - hidden by Nick?" She seems just as dubious about the thought of it as Rook.

"My gut says no, I think it was more likely to have been hidden by Burt."

"Your gut's usually pretty accurate," Grace reminds him. "And that would explain a lot. So what's on it?"

"Well, that's a mystery so far. It's locked."

Grace sighs. "Of course it is."

"I don't suppose you can think of anyone who'd be any help with that? Other than Larry Parker, who's a bit beyond our reach."

Grace makes an amused noise.

"I don't care what you say. I'm still convinced that idiot vaporized himself."

Which, true or not, doesn't invalidate anything he'd built, or what he'd left behind. A crazy genius is still a genius after all.

"I don't want to make any definitive judgement calls," Rook says. Which makes Grace laugh. "We're working on it, just take care of yourself, and if you find out anything, text me."

"Will do."

"Grace, do you want me to phone Earl, or are you going to see him?" Technically Earl is still his boss, and technically Rook is supposed to be on duty. But dealing with an insane cult war, a devastating asteroid bombardment and an armed invasion of baby-stealing soldiers tends to screw with your work/life balance. Half the time Rook doesn't even know how to fill out the paperwork any more.

"I'm heading over there in a little while, I'll pass on your messages. Send me a picture of anything you want me to ask around about."

"Thanks Grace."

"Take care, Rook."

Peanut's starting to make irritated, hungry noises, so he puts the phone away, and leans over Jacob's shoulder to pick her up.

"Lunchtime," Rook says, and he doesn't know whether she understands the word, or just likes to hear him talk to her, but she wriggles and scratches excitably at his neck and shirt collar. "Do you want some food? I don't have a bottle made up, and you're still growing after all."

Peanut burbles what Rook likes to think is an affirmative, then shakes her arms and legs, as if to demonstrate how much she's grown already. He can't help laughing at that, because she is genuinely his favourite tiny person.

"I think you have a ravioli left." Though the goo inside the jar is bright orange. Which suggests a very unfortunate future for Joseph's kitchen, and Peanut's clothes, and Rook's clothes. "And we're going to try not to put it everywhere, or Joseph will not invite us over again." 

They're interrupted half way through Peanut's lunch by a thin, scarred man who knocks politely on Joseph's door. Though Jacob's the one who slips close and pulls it open, stares down at the stranger as if demanding to know what he wants. The stranger clearly knows Jacob well enough to not flee in terror.

Rook pauses with the spoon halfway to Peanut's mouth, while one ravioli flavoured fist waves impatiently, leaving spatters of orange in her eyebrows.

"Steven." Joseph says, from where he's still stood patiently in the middle of the kitchen, and Rook has no doubt that Joseph knows every single one of his followers by name.

There are a lot of people in the room, from Jacob's watchful demanding presence, to Faith, who's folding baby clothes, to John who's curiously looking through the flavours of baby food that are left, to Rook who's currently being gently speckled with bits of ravioli.

But Steven only has eyes for Joseph.

"Father." He looks like he wants to fall in Joseph's direction, move closer, maybe touch him. Joseph isn't doing anything to discourage it, and that's a weird thing to witness, when the version of Joseph in Rook's head has been sliding very gently towards something almost normal. It's almost unsettling to be reminded that he's still more like a figure of worship to these people. That he's the one who drew the Peggies here, who started everything, because he thinks God told him to. And Rook still doesn't actually know what God wants him to do next.

Steven briefly looks at Rook again, a question in his face.

"You may speak in front of Rook," Joseph says simply.

Which genuinely does surprise Rook. Because he's still effectively law enforcement in this county, and Eden's Gate have always been famous for breaking the laws and regulations that they don't like, that they don't think apply to them. Never subtly, but with rocket launchers, murder and hundred foot statues. Rook can't just ignore everything they have going on. Joseph has to know that.

"There's a group of townsfolk on the far side of the river," Steven starts. "They've been there since this morning." 

Joseph raises his hands, as if to gather Steven and his problem closer.

"Our people are still learning to be among their neighbours again, Steven. We must forgive them for past slights, for their mistrust and their anger. We must not let past actions dictate current ones. This is an opportunity to work together while the county is under threat from outsiders. To show those who are not with us the strength of our character, our determination, our unwavering faith. If they have visited no violence against you, done you no harm, then you must do the same."

"One of them set fire to the dock," Steven says. A point he seems to think makes his entire argument for him.

"That was probably Sharky," Rook provides helpfully. "And it was almost certainly an accident. He sets things on fire by accident a lot. The fires he makes on purpose are usually a lot bigger." It occurs to Rook that the Seeds aren't exactly the first dangerous and unstable friends he's had. 

"Another one of them has a rocket launcher," Steven adds quickly. "Which he carries in a threatening manner."

"And that would be Hurk," Rook points out. "I've seen him nearly knock himself out with that thing at least twice. Directly in front of him is usually the safest place to stand." There definitely seems to be a pattern to Rook's friendships that he's never noticed before. He likes to think that's a recent thing, but it seems worryingly easy, as if he might naturally fit with people who aren't quite normal.

"They've also been singing," Steven continues. "Inappropriate songs." His frown is slowly deepening. Rook is starting to suspect he just resents having to be this close to sinners, without being allowed to shoot them, or judge them in any way.

Peanut has managed to dig her toes into the chair base, and lever herself forward far enough to grasp the edge of the spoon and is slowly but surely pulling it towards her mouth. Rook is so impressed by her ingenuity that he doesn't even try and stop her. Jacob is watching as well, he looks amused. 

"Blasphemous songs, with sinful lyrics. They're doing it on purpose, they're making -"

Joseph drifts forward and gathers Steven in physically this time, with a gesture and a touch. Steven stops talking, the irritated crease in his forehead smoothing into quiet obedience.

"Steven, this challenge we are facing must be met with strength, with fortitude. You are all my children today, those who are of Eden's Gate and those who are not. It is the outsiders who will be tested, the outsiders who will be challenged. I require this of you." Joseph's gaze is firmly fixed on Steven now.

Steven relaxes in his grip. He inclines his head, like a child who's been chastised.

"Yes, Father."

Peanut gives a little squeal of triumph, that quickly transforms into a messy noise of satisfaction and dribbling. She's finally managed to ease the spoon into her mouth, gooey orange hands wrapped round Rook's much larger one. 

"You're a very clever girl," Rook tells her, and rewards her with another spoonful. She sinks down off her wobbling foot with a grunt of effort, then laughs and slaps the wooden tray, flinging tiny spots of her lunch three feet in every direction. And Faith really shouldn't wear so much white.

Jacob isn't even trying to hold a smile any more.

"John," Joseph says at last, lifting a hand towards his younger brother. "Go and speak to Drubman and his friends, make sure there are no misunderstandings."

John looks like he wants to protest, but Joseph's quiet, calm stare seems to be enough to forestall any arguments he might have against the request - though 'request' seems like the wrong word.

"Of course," he says, pushing himself upright and straightening his vest. John has a smile for Steven, and it's the smile he wears when he's going to fix everything, smooth things over, put things to rest, or staple someone's skin to a wall. Which should be a disturbing reminder of exactly who John is when he lets his impulses take the wheel, of exactly what he's capable of. But the fact that he's only doing that to people who ask for it now, feels like some sort of weird progress. Though Rook's aware that doesn't mean a whole lot to everyone John did that too, Nick included.

"Tell everyone that me and Peanut say hi," Rook tells him. "And try to avoid being set on fire." 

John huffs a laugh, as if he'd like to see Sharky try. Rook would like to remind him that Sharky has set far more things on fire than John has cut words into, but he's distracted by the way John slips round the table and curls a hand over his shoulder.

"Don't do anything without me," John says testily, as if he's genuinely worried he'll miss some sort of explosion that Rook might be responsible for. Rook's half tempted to complain that he's trying not to be the epicentre of disaster this time. But John has already leant in and crushed Rook's mouth shut with his own. In front of everyone, in front of Steven, and Rook doesn't even know Steven. John sighs, like he's been restraining himself all morning, and he doesn't give a single shit who's looking. But then the pressure and the warmth is gone, and John's breathing something too soft to be laughter against his mouth, smile sharp and close, and indulgent.

Peanut waves her ravioli covered hand next to John's face, as if she's complaining that he's not paying any attention to her. John laughs and pets her mostly clean hair, before easing away.

"I'll be back in a while," he says to Peanut, or possibly to both of them. Rook doesn't fucking know. They're a thing now, he supposes, probably, maybe? 

Rook is pretty sure both Joseph and Jacob are looking at him, but he has ravioli to feed to a baby.

 

-

 

The radio message comes in three hours later. After a notification that they need to be listening at four o'clock. 

Peanut is down for her nap, basket tucked in close to the couch, where Rook can hear her if she wakes. The others are settled in the kitchen, radio pulled down and set on the table.

Joseph is seated at the head of the table, hands laid on the wood, eyes half closed, and Rook already knows that patience is no problem for him. Jacob is standing next to him, arms crossed, like he's waiting to judge his enemy, discover their weaknesses and dig a knife in. 

Faith is sitting next to Rook at the other end, bare feet swinging ever so slowly, though for the first time sice he came here she's no longer smiling, she's waiting with everyone else.

John seems to be finding the wait the most difficult, long, tattooed hands pressed together, knuckles tense.

Until the radio clicks, and crackles, comes to life. The voice that flows out of it is slow and deep, accent out of place, and there's an air of quiet, unhappy impatience to it. As if he resents having to talk to them at all. Rook's pretty sure he isn't imagining the vague air of mockery that seems to come free as well. 

" _I had expected that I would be negotiating with Eden's Gate. That I would have to converse with small-minded zealots who would not understand what they had found - what they had stolen from me._

_But from the moment I came here, I have heard the same name, over and over, Deputy Rook. You are something of a local celebrity, and I can understand why, if even half the rumours are to be believed._

_Are you a member of Eden's Gate now, Deputy? Or is that collection of fanatics and madmen simply sheltering you, and my stolen property? Do you take orders from Joseph Seed, I wonder? You don't seem the type to fall prey to his flavour of religious lunacy and violence. Or perhaps Jacob Seed, that professional dog trainer I've heard so much about, who sends other men to do his killing for him. The youngest, John, doesn't seem to make his own decisions, he's clearly a psychotic sadist who serves no purpose other than to carve up anyone who doesn't do what they're told, who doesn't bend in obedience to their leader's own particular mental illness._

_Or perhaps you've found yourself enamoured of the sister, drawn in by her manipulations and lies, addicted to her many poisons._

_You're not like them, Deputy. You are not a broken man who needs guidance, who needs to be obeyed, who needs followers to give you purpose. No, you're a man who does what needs to be done. You're a man who solves problems, who chooses his own fate, a man who makes the hard choices. So here is the choice I will give you. All attacks against my men will cease. You will bring my property to the bridge at noon tomorrow, a helicopter will land, and I will release Mrs Rye to you. Then we will leave the county, and you will not try and stop us. Once we are past the boundaries, Mr Rye will be released to you, and you will not follow us._

_If you refuse, if you make a different choice, I will send as many men as it takes to see you dragged out into the open, and I will kill you and anyone who may have sheltered you, to retrieve what belongs to me._

_This is my only offer, there will not be a second._ "

Rook listens to the radio gently click, and then go silent, and there's no sound in the room. 

Until a chair creaks, long and slow as someone's weight shifts. 

Joseph Seed very slowly draws his hands from the wood, lifts them to include every person in the room, and then one by one, they all turn to look at Rook.

There's a question in that silence, phrased in different ways from each of them but still the same underneath. Are you with us?

_Are you with us?_


	13. Chapter 13

Without speaking, Rook draws the flash drive out of his pocket, and then slides it across the table to Joseph. Who lifts a hand, and slowly covers that rectangle of metal and plastic. Because Rook doesn't need to know what's on it, he doesn't need the leverage, it doesn't matter in the end. He can't do this alone, and if the Seeds are going to set part of the county on fire again for this, then Rook is going to stay with them. If only to try and make sure it's a controlled burn.

"There are preparations to be made," Joseph says, and there's satisfaction in the pronouncement, in the gathering of his loyal Heralds - and whatever the hell Rook is.

Rook pulls his phone out of his pocket, and heads back over to Peanut's basket, hits the first name in his contacts. Grace picks up almost immediately.

"Did you hear that?" he asks.

Grace makes an affirmative noise, that manages to sound thoroughly unimpressed.

"I did, I think everyone in the county did, which I guess was kind of the point. And I hope you didn't believe a word of that stream of bullshit." Grace has never had any reservations about making her feelings known, which is one of the reasons why Rook was always happy to have her around, even on the stupidly reckless missions. "Because that's exactly what it was. Though I like to think I know you well enough to know exactly what you're going to do with a warning like that."

It's true that this isn't even close to the first angry warning through the radio that Rook's had directed at him, though the Seeds more often promised torture, brainwashing or religious conversion rather than gruesome death. Even if there was always the understanding that gruesome death might be an option, if he resisted hard enough.

"He's trying to drive a wedge between you and the Seeds, to make them turn on you, make them stop protecting you, so you have no choice but to run." Grace is smiling through the words, possibly because she knows Rook is far more likely to run towards things than away from them.

"I think it's fair to say that he did not accomplish that," Rook offers. Whatever research this man had done on the county, Rook would wager it was all from before the disaster. Because he'd clearly expected a county still fractured in hard lines, threatened by religious madness and violence. But Joseph hadn't exactly been the negotiating sort, even before all this started. 

"I'd bet my ass they're fucking pissed though," Grace says.

Rook takes a moment to look back towards the table, where Jacob and Faith are tipped towards Joseph, while he speaks to them in a low voice, with a focused sort of intensity that feel purposeful. John isn't at the table any more, and it takes Rook a worried second to spot him by the back door, a taut line of blue and black, talking quietly but angrily into his own phone. 

"My chest tattoo is definitely feeling appropriate right about now. Maybe we could all get matching ones?"

Grace takes a second to huff amusement. "Don't give them any ideas," she complains. "What do you want us to do?" 

"I want everyone to stand down for now." Rook will worry about how easily everyone puts him in charge when there's a crisis later, after they've fixed this mess and gotten their people back. "And we're going to need every bit of information we've collected on the bases where they're still dug in. I want everyone to fall back and wait. But to be ready, because I suspect at noon tomorrow everything is going to go to shit, and then all bets are off."

"It's not like it would be the first time," Grace says, as if she expected nothing less, and approves. "But it's going to be nice to have the numbers. What are you going to do?"

"If everything goes well I'm going to get Kim," Rook tells her.

Grace makes a curious noise down the phone. 

"I feel like your plan is missing a few steps there."

"That's because Jacob's going to be making the plan this time," Rook says. "And I'm going to be playing soldier."

Rook hears text messages come in, under the sound of Grace's voice. Most likely Earl, maybe Pratt or Hudson. He'll reply to them in a second.

"Playing Herald you mean? I'll bet they love that, considering how hard they worked to pull you in the first time around. But much as I don't like the man, I can't fault his planning." Grace's reluctant approval seems like a good sign, or at least that's what Rook's going to take it as. "Get in touch with me, let me know what's happening one way or the other, good luck."

"You too, Grace. Stay safe."

"Now where's the fun in that," she says smoothly, and then rings off. Rook thinks she might have been hanging around Sharky and Hurk too much. God, is he going to be the only responsible adult when this is all over? Because that's a terrifying thought.

Joseph is in the doorway when he turns around, waiting patiently for Rook to finish. Or not so patiently, if the pale press of his hands is to be believed. His rosary is a slowly swinging line, thread worn where it wraps round his palm. Rook has to wonder how long he's been wearing it for, if he's even allowed to take it off. When Rook slides his phone back in his pocket, Joseph steps close, like he wants to gather Rook in. Or to fill him with some sort of strange purpose.

"These men are not to be trusted." Joseph's voice is soft, but there's a biting edge that tells Rook that it doesn't want to be, it wants to be fierce, that it wants to make him listen. But Rook is not family, not one of his followers, not a soldier under his command. There's probably somewhere on Rook he could push, that he could bend, he's done it before. But maybe Joseph thinks that any attempt at manipulation would fracture whatever this new thing between them all is. "They have already proven themselves to be liars, who have no -"

"You don't have to convince me." Rook's the one who lifts his hands this time, strangely awkward for a moment, until Joseph's own rise to meet them. "You don't have to give me a speech. We're in this together, I'm in this with all of you."

Joseph says nothing for a moment, head tipped to the side, before he curls strong fingers around Rook's forearms and squeezes gently, the serious line of his mouth stretching at the edges. 

"So you are," he says, in slow voice that carries a strange, unexpected warmth, as if Rook is a lost child that has _finally_ come home. And Rook knows that the more he lets Joseph think that the more it threatens to become a promise that Rook doesn't think he can keep. But whatever protests Rook might have to that can wait.

Joseph has sermons to write, Chosen to call upon, and since Peanut is still sleeping he agrees to watch her, encouraging Rook to ensure that John is making his own preparations, and not trying to file at his painful edges. Which Joseph says with such careful, pointed honesty that it worries him.

Rook finds John upstairs in the bathroom, Joseph's worry made into something real. Because the long mirror is broken, lines cascading out from the centre, and there's a deep crack in the sink. John is carefully ignoring both of those things to stare at himself, in the largest piece of glass left on the wall. There's a dripping trail of blood across his wrist and half his hair looks like it was put back hastily, without the assistance of a mirror. He's wearing the tired, unsurprised smile of a man who can see disaster coming, and has more than enough time to swerve, but it's just too much of a habit to stay in the path, to watch everything come apart.

"Don't, just fucking don't," John says simply. But he looks at Rook like he can still hear all the things he could say to him, all the ways he could _judge_ him. Mouth pulling down at the edges.

But Rook says nothing, instead he just shuts the door behind him, surveying the bathroom, cut to pieces in a hundred mirrored shards.

John watches him silently when he comes close, as if he's already accepted whatever Rook wants to lay on him. But Rook just lifts John's hand and carefully turns it. There's a thick red line, that curls around the jut of bone at his wrist and runs down. John's fingers curl, and he hums surprise, as if he hadn't known he was bleeding. The source is there though, a gash in the lower part of his palm, in the softness, bright and messy, but not bad enough for stitches.

John makes a quiet noise when Rook pulls it over the sink, washes it out and then sets it on the clean surface. There's gauze in the cabinet, tape set neatly aside. Rook will say one thing for the Seeds, they seem to work on the assumption that someone will be bleeding at some point and stock accordingly. Which Rook supposes has been more than proven over the last few days. John gives a protesting huff and Rook knows it's barely bad enough for this much attention. He's probably done worse to himself without noticing.

"Rook," John says, soft, drawn-out, like he wants to make it more than one syllable. 

Rook looks up, but there's nothing after, as if John just needed to say his name. He tapes the gauze down, and maybe it's all just an excuse for Rook to touch him, to wrap his hand round John's tattooed fingers. Because this is all still new, barely days old, and though John pushes and bites and claims his space like he owns it, Rook can't quite do the same, even though he wants to. 

"You're allowed to be angry you know," Rook says quietly. 

John's jaw clenches, fingers pulling out of Rook's grip, leaving his hands empty.

"You think that because you don't realise how hard it is to stop, once I start," John protests, irritated into biting the words out. "How easy it is to just let it happen, to break _everything_."

"A bunch of military assholes threatened you and your brothers," Rook reminds him, possibly unwisely, but he has his own habits that are hard to break. "I think you can be forgiven for working through it on your own terms."

"People usually bleed for that," John snaps. "People have always bled for that."

Rook's fingers are on his skin again, and maybe the only way to make it easier is to just keep reaching out. He curls his hands around John's wrist, fingers sliding down to touch the edge of the gauze.

"They already did," Rook points out. 

John draws a hard breath, exhales it all out like Rook doesn't understand, like he doesn't _get it_. He tangles his fingers in Rook's shirt and pushes him against the wall, leans up and kisses him. John bleeds rage like a pinned animal, mouth vicious, hands so tight in Rook's shirt it feels like it's tearing. But the fact that Rook's not fighting, that he's drawing John in with a solid grip on his waist, letting him push, letting him take whatever he wants - eventually John's hands loosen and then slide up, drag through his hair, mouth going soft. Until John's just breathing into him. Rook's holding his weight, all angles and warmth and vaguely citrus-flavoured scent that's quickly becoming a familiar part of Rook's life.

Because even like this, even when he's so close to Rook's worst memories of him, he still wants him. Which he supposes means something.

"I remember how much you hated me," John breathes out. "I remember tearing apart the valley to catch you, I remember how furious I was at you, how much I wanted to hurt you. It was all I could think about, and I wanted it. Joseph told me, told me so many times that it was going to ruin me. But I was going to save you, I was going to be the one who convinced you to join us. But the more you were real, the more you pushed me, the more I wanted, and I could tell myself that I was doing it to save you as much as I liked, but that wasn't -" There's a cracked, angry noise in John's throat. "I thought you would be bad for me, that you would take from me."

The words are accusing but John's fingers curl in his hair, smile angled and white, and then gone briefly when John kisses him again. 

"You still want to hurt me," Rook says quietly. Because he knows it's true, maybe more so now that Rook is something he's allowed to touch.

John's mouth goes tight at the edge. Rook thinks for a long moment, that John is going to lie to him. But eventually he sighs.

"I still want to hurt everyone," he says at last, the brutal honesty that's always felt easy for him. "I still want to dig in and take pieces from people. I can't stop wanting it." John stops talking and there's a drawn-out, tight noise. "But it's not like that with you - only as much as you'd let me, only if you asked me to." John frowns, like he's said too much, admitted to too much. Rook thinks maybe he was pretending this thing between them was going to be normal. That everything might be normal now, or close enough to pretend. "Only if you wanted me to."

John seems to realise what he's saying, what he's asking for. He shakes his head, smiles wide like he wants to take all of that back. As if it's wrong, as if it's all wrong and this isn't the way that John wanted it to go.

Rook slips in before he can take anything away, presses him into the cracked sink and kisses him, not as hard as John kissed him, there's nothing desperate about it, just a bracket of hands and a push and a sigh against his face that somehow makes John's shoulders relax. Rook crawls his fingertips under John's vest, where he's warm, shirt wrinkled, skin a breath away. 

When Rook tips back again John murmurs his name, as if he still doesn't know why the hell he wants to be a part of this. 

"You can call me by my first name if you want to," Rook tells him.

John frowns, though something about him feels relieved that Rook chooses not to question him further.

"I thought you hated your first name?"

"I don't hate it, I just got used to not hearing it. I don't give it away very often." He doesn't get the chance to very often. Most people in Hope County already know it, the Seeds all know it, because it's in his official paperwork that Nancy copied for them all months ago. But Rook has no family, and his friends have gotten so used to calling him Rook. It's still weird hearing it every time he's around Nick and Kim. Hearing it in soft tones, in happy greeting. He's never cared that much, but Peanut's going to carry it completely differently to how he does. "Maybe I could stand to hear it a little, sometimes."

John doesn't say anything, doesn't seem to know what to do with that, and Rook thinks maybe he knows that it means something.

"We're going to get them back, you know that," John says suddenly. "Much as I dislike Nick Rye we are going to retrieve him and Kim, because they belong to us, not to them. They may have come here with weapons, and vehicles, and trained men, but they're still going to lose."

"You sound sure about that." A lot of people sound sure about things that Rook never feels. He wonders if he sounds like that too, when he's making promises.

"Of course, I'm fucking sure," John tells him. "Because we tried it once, we tried it once and we were prepared, properly prepared to take everything. But you wouldn't let us, you wouldn't let us and they don't have you. How the hell is anyone supposed to take any part of this county without you on their side." John draws back, turns to look at himself in the pieces of mirror, and makes an annoyed noise. As if his reflection offends him, or as if Rook has uncovered something raw that John is not ready to share.

Rook wants to reach out again, wants to find something to say that will help. He's never been very good at that, but he wants to try.

"Peanut's probably hungry," John says. Go away for a while, Rook thinks he means, but doesn't want to say it.

Whether it's an excuse or not, Peanut should have eaten an hour ago. Rook's still not used to his life being timed, and his watch has been broken since he scraped it along the floor during the shootout in John's kitchen. He has no idea why he's still wearing it, it's probably more habit than anything else. A lot of things Rook had assumed were carefully thought out decisions are turning out to be little more than habits.

When he gets downstairs he finds Faith on the couch, hair spread over the back, feet kicked up on the coffee table. Peanut's laying on her, hands patting at the bottle she has balanced in one hand, drinking in quick, greedy gulps.

"It was on your schedule," Faith says, though there's a question in her expression. "I didn't think you'd mind." The bottle pops out of Peanut's mouth when she grins and waves her arms, spotting him from her position in the crook of Faith's arm. But hunger apparently wins out in the end, when she chases the top of the bottle and reclaims it. Head tipping back as if to check whether Faith is still there.

Rook shakes his head.

"No, it's fine, thanks, I've been kind of sucking at the schedule so far," he admits. "But in my defence I've only had a baby for about five days."

Faith laughs, then pats the couch next to her. "Come sit with me, Rook."

No one else is here, so he toes his boots off and puts his feet up with hers. Though his cover a significantly larger portion of the table, which makes her laugh and spread her bare toes. Rook doesn't think he's ever seen her in shoes. How does she get around the county without treading on anything sharp, or disgusting. Maybe he should ask her at some point.

"We haven't really had a chance to talk, since you got here, and I thought we should, since Joseph seems determined to make you part of the family."

Rook's pretty sure everyone has noticed that. Joseph isn't exactly hiding it at this point.

"That's something he seems to have decided without much input from me," Rook points out.

"Joseph usually gets what he wants," Faith reminds him.

Rook sighs, because that's annoyingly true. Though he hasn't forgotten that Joseph isn't the only one who knows how to get what they want.

"You don't seem to be fighting very hard against it." She points out, and she seems amused, which Rook thinks he probably deserves, because it's true. He's been doing very little to dissuade Joseph from his continued certainty that Rook belongs with them.

"John agreed to help me with Peanut, the rest was mostly accidental." Though that sounds kind of stupid, now Rook's said it out loud.

"You're good at protecting people," she says. "At making sacrifices for them." There's a question there, and maybe she's asking if he's satisfied with the sacrifice he's making for Peanut.

She doesn't press for an answer, just asks him to tell her more about the little weight that's currently wriggling in her lap. Rook shares how Peanut was born, the plane that they narrowly avoided getting crushed by, the shortcut through the woods that turned out to be a bad idea. The river Rook drove through. It's probably the first time Rook has heard a genuine laugh out of Faith, it's less musical, but it's warm and real.

Peanut pats at Faith's hands, fingers scratching, and Rook notices that her eyes are droopy. Though she's not due for another nap for a few hours at least.

"I'll put her in the basket once she's asleep," Faith says quietly, fingers stroking the back of Peanut's hand, and Rook thinks that maybe there's a request there as well. Five more minutes.

"Ok," he says simply.

"I have some phone calls to make," she says. "So I'll be in here anyway."

"Are you coming with us tomorrow?" Rook asks.

"Of course I am," she tells him, tips her head sideways to look at him. Rook remembers that sincerity, that quiet, earnest assurance. He remembers it bringing a world of violence and madness down upon him. "They threatened my family too."

Rook heads back upstairs, finds the bathroom and his own room empty. 

Every one of the Seeds has their own room, it had never occurred to Rook before but it's obvious once he thinks about it. Joseph put him near the front of the hall, so he's had no reason to walk past them. But the door across from his is open, and he can just make out the curve of Jacob's arm, moving steadily and slowly in long sweeps. The further Rook goes the more he sees, the dragging edge of a soft cloth, small brushes, the blocky pieces of a gun. Rook wonders if he's cleaning them all, if he thinks he might need them all. Rook's not sure if the open door is an invitation or not, so he waits just past the doorway, for Jacob to tell him to come in, or fuck off.

"Did you stitch him up?" Jacob asks quietly instead, eyes lifting to pin Rook where he stands.

Rook's not sure whether to be reassured that Jacob knows John well enough to ask, or depressed that Jacob knows John well enough to ask.

"He didn't need stitches," Rook says.

Jacob looks up from the weapon he's cleaning, though his movements never pause, there's a moment of acknowledgement, and then something that's almost relieved.

"Good," he says simply. "A man only has so much skin."

"I think he's smart enough to know that insulting you all into some sort of stupidity, or into handing me over, was kind of the point of that radio broadcast." That and to separate Rook out, remind them all that he used to be an enemy. That he was the one who put his fist through their operation. Though that feels like a long time ago now.

"John's smart enough for a lot of things. Still doesn't always listen to what his head is telling him," Jacob reminds him.

Rook thinks they're all guilty of that sometimes.

"How's your graze?" he asks.

Jacob fixes him with a look, his face is surprisingly open this afternoon, as if preparation for a fight has relaxed him rather than wound him tight. There's less of a forced, unsettling wrongness to his stiff smile, where it always felt like a threat. This smile is slower to appear, high on one side, but far more genuine.

"It's still there," he says. "Contrary to what some people believe I'm not indestructible." He waves Rook to the chair across from him, and Rook sits.

"I feel like you'd just take that as a challenge," Rook decides. "And it wasn't so much a belief as the only logical explanation when every attempt to put you down ended in failure."

"Joseph does good work, he's had a lot of practice putting all of us back together again."

That seems ironic in so many ways. Though even Jacob seems to acknowledge as much, when his smile pinches into something a little wry. For all that people seem to think otherwise, the Seeds seem perfectly aware of all the breaks and edges that exist in each other. Rook has noticed the way they fit themselves awkwardly together, brace where a brother has a weakness, defer where another has a strength.

"I don't doubt Joseph's work, I doubt your ability to notice how badly you're injured."

Jacob sets down the piece of gun that he's clearly finished cleaning. "Would you like to see for yourself?"

Rook opens his mouth, to protest that that isn't necessary, to point out that Jacob won't care what he thinks, he'll do what he wants either way. But before he can choose one, Jacob has set the metal and cloth down, drawn his jacket off, material pulled up his body and over his head. He does it easily, as if this is just about the roll of cloth, and the quiet simplicity of bare skin. But it feels like so much more than that, now his entire family isn't in the room.

Jacob's scars start thick and then ease into shallower curves and lines, a splash of damage that fans out in a wave, made long enough ago that Rook doesn't think Jacob cares any more, as if all the judgement has already been laid, and ground over. It's impossible not to look, not when Jacob is daring him to. But Rook refuses to make it obvious, as if this is just another test he can fail.

The gauze is still neat and clean, a little pinched from the movement of Jacob's neck. Jacob doesn't tip his head, doesn't give any gesture of submission, he just waits.

Which is what makes Rook move in eventually, lean down, carefully work at the tape set against his skin. This close Rook can smell Jacob, where he's been working, the soft underhint of oil and metal. He can feel how warm he is under his fingers. He makes the room feel full, though Rook thinks they all do, in their own way.

"It's been a while since someone caught me with a bullet." Jacob doesn't sound annoyed about it. It's more a gritty sort of acknowledgement. The world catching up to him. Or maybe age catching up to him, Rook forgets sometimes. 

The wound is entirely shut, with sore pink edges and a hardening centre. Jacob's jaw twitches, as if he wants to turn and look, but he's smart enough to know that he can't see anything. Rook straightens for a second, picks up the small circular mirror from the chest of drawers behind him, and holds it so Jacob can see.

Jacob tilts his head, eyes the wound for a second.

"Graze," he mutters eventually, though Rook can see the smile he's trying to hide behind his beard, the curling edges of it, eyes unexpectedly blue in the light. 

Rook shakes his head and sets the mirror down, leans to re-tape the whole thing. Jacob turns his head to watch him, every part of him closer than it's ever been. 

"You would have made a terrible soldier," Jacob tells him. Rook can feel the words rumble out, though it's not judgement, more like wry amusement, as if Rook has proven him wrong in some way. 

He stops halfway through carefully re-sticking the first piece of tape down, raises an eyebrow, because part of him thinks this is going to be another compliment disguised as an insult. Jacob's very good at those.

"I don't think you've done what you were told once in your entire life. You're happy to risk your own life but you hate taking other people with you, you prefer to fight alone, where you can be reckless and unpredictable. But I don't think I've ever once seen you stop, or give in, or give up, and you grind through whatever's put in front of you like it's your only purpose. It should have gotten you killed." Jacob pauses when he finishes, as if he'd asked Rook a question, though Rook can't find any in that flow of words.

He tapes the other side of the gauze down, not being overly carefully when he presses it flat, which makes Jacob huff a breath. Rook's daring a lot of things he would never have done lately. But Jacob seems almost pleased at the warning pressure.

"But you're not that sort of man," he continues. "Not underneath. When you're not fighting, you pack it all away, you set it all down. Not many people can do that."

"Thank you," Rook says. "I think."

"It's hard to make someone like you fit into a box, do what they're told, follow the rules," Jacob tells him, and it feels a little like he's prodding at an old wound, checking to see if it had healed without scarring.

"You did it to me," Rook reminds him. Because he's still not sure himself, it's a memory that doesn't pack away half as neatly as Jacob seems to think.

"I did it to you once," Jacob says, the last word stressed pointedly. "You learned from it, and didn't let me do it again."

Rook frowns at him, because that wasn't exactly how he would have related the mess that Jacob put him through, not in terms of personal growth, and at no point did Rook ever feel like he'd won anything.

"Also your clothes are clean," Jacob adds, which makes no sense for a moment. Until Jacob half smiles, reaches up and catches the edge of Rook's t-shirt - Jacob's t-shirt - where it's come away from his side while he leant over to re-tape his wound. "But you're still wearing mine."

The fabric bunches in Jacob's grip, and Rook can feel his knuckles at the bend of his waist, hot against the skin, more pointed than demanding. But nothing Jacob does is ever subtle, not really, it's all too thought-out, too considered. It feels too much like Jacob wants to pull him down, encourage him lower, eyes drifting down his face in a way that makes Rook's whole body give a warm, unexpected clench. At the possibility of _Jacob_.

And it only takes a second to think about, to consider it, far too easy with Jacob so close, shirt still thrown behind him. But Rook already has a brother dug underneath his skin, warm and sharp and messy as hell.

"I'm involved with your brother," Rook says quietly, mouth dry. 

Jacob smiles, breathes laughter, because it's not like John didn't make that obvious. "Which one?" he asks smoothly though, because he's a fucking shit.

Rook will not think about that, will not let that suggestion lead anywhere.

"John," Rook says, and he doesn't smile, he fucking doesn't, even as he eases away from that press of skin, and Jacob lets him, fingers loosening in the fabric. For just a second, Jacob looks amused, smile unexpectedly wide, indulgent where he looks up at him, before it's gone, pushed back beneath that flat composure that Jacob wears to face the world.

"Joseph wants you to feel welcome, he wants you to stay," he says, voice still quiet, almost soft. Though Jacob's voice is too deep for that to be anything other than a rumbling push of sound. Rook hears what Jacob doesn't say just as clearly. John wants you to stay as well. 

Rook doesn't have a fucking clue what Jacob wants. 

"I don't think this is what he meant," Rook tells him.

Jacob actually laughs that time, a warm roll of it that Rook is close enough to feel.

"Are you sure about that?"

Rook isn't sure about that, he isn't sure at all.

He expects dinner to be quiet, to be muted in some way because of the threat that tomorrow might bring. But he should have realised that Joseph, Jacob, John and Faith have spent months under constant threat of sudden violence, or perhaps longer. The island is as secure as it's going to get, Peggies patrolling every inch of it, lights trained on the sky and the water, snipers watching for movement on the opposite banks, and the bridge into the valley, and the Henbane.

Dinner is just as warm as before, though there's no talk of what's going to happen tomorrow, it's only alluded to in half-voiced suggestions. Which leaves Rook to conclude that Joseph doesn't allow talk of upcoming violence around the table. But John has pushed his chair closer to Rook, and Jacob has taken charge of feeding Peanut, a mission he applies himself to with such efficiency that she's finished before any of them. Which leaves her moving her little dish round and round, trying to find more dinner, occasionally lifting it to chew almost angrily on the edge.

Rook's starting to suspect she's trying to make teeth come through somehow, since she's been chewing on everything lately. But he'd always thought teething came with crying and red cheeks and sore bits on the gums. Kim had mentioned once that she worried Peanut was going to be a slow developer. She's already a little small for her age, probably because she spent her first three months of her life in a bunker, breathing filtered air, under artificial lights, surrounded by strangers, getting nutrition from whatever Kim could get in the canned food and the long-life meals. But Peanut proved to be as stubborn and determined as her parents.

He remembers her bath today. Though Joseph's old-fashioned tub makes the lean over the side awkward as hell. 

Rook gives Peanut her plastic food dish, and the frog, and some plastic cups to play with, and she seems fascinated for a while at their ability to collect water and then tip it out again. She spends five minutes in spellbound wonder, occasionally shaking cups full of water all over herself and Rook, before laughing and starting all over again.

He lets her hang onto them while he washes her hair, which he notices still has spots of orange ravioli juice in it. 

Afterwards, clean and sleepy and popped into a onesie, she falls asleep against Rook's shoulder, a few minutes into a bottle, hair still sticking up due to his awful drying job.

Rook needs to get some sleep. If tomorrow is going to be as much of a fucking event as he thinks it is. But he was never military and he never developed the knack of forcing himself to sleep. Even in the middle of county versus cult, running on no sleep, carrying too many guns and avoiding all of the dangerous wild animals that the county had to offer, Rook always felt like he was one sharp jolt away from waking, and one cup of coffee away from never sleeping again. 

Jacob could probably sleep standing up in a puddle, and be ready to go the instant someone breathed too hard in his direction. And Rook already knows how John sleeps, with a reckless sort of surrender, but not deeply and he wakes immediately, guarded in an instant.

He can't quite imagine how Joseph sleeps, Rook feels like it's all or nothing with him. That he either sleeps deeply and completely, body spread like it had fallen, or sparely and fitfully, with a manic sort of restlessness. It disturbs him a little that he could probably just ask, and Joseph would tell him.

Peanut is already in her basket by the side of the bed, but she's not sleeping at the moment either. Rook thinks maybe she's absorbed everyone's tension, or mistaken it for excitement. Because she's been blowing bubbles, talking to herself and making huffy noises that suggest she's been trying to roll over for an hour.

If everything goes well, Peanut will have Kim back tomorrow, if Rook does his job, doesn't fuck up, Peanut will have her mom back.


	14. Chapter 14

Rook wakes at four in the morning to Peanut crying, loudly and unhappily a foot away from him. It's a demand for attention, like she'd had a scary dream and doesn't want to go back to sleep.

He rolls over and blinks down at her. But all he can see in the darkness is the blanket moving as she kicks at it, and the blurry spot of motion that might be her head. He reaches down for her, finds her heaving, kicking body and scoops her up, brings her in close. Her face is wet against his t-shirt, and she rubs her noisy, open mouth against his chest, briefly muffling her unhappiness, before leaning away and wailing again.

"Hey, hey," he shushes her, to very little effect. "You're going to wake everyone. And then all your new friends will be tired and grumpy." He smoothes down her hair, but she just bashes at her own face and cries harder. Which makes Rook feel utterly useless, in a way he never quite knows how to fix. There are so many things he knows how to do, so many weird skills he's picked up. But none of them are helpful with this. None of them are what Peanut needs.

The door clicks open, the resulting streak of light making him wince and squint, before Jacob's body blocks most of it out. Rook sighs at him, an apology already half ready, for the noise before the sun is even up. But Jacob just gives an odd, amused smile and comes close enough that Rook's left awkwardly looking up at him.

"Here," Jacob says simply. He leans in, knee against the mattress where Rook is still half reclined. "I'm already up, I'll take her." He slips his hands under Rook's, grasps Peanut's body and lifts her up and away from him.

Peanut's little legs kick, and she bats at Jacob unhappily, until he draws her in against his chest, making soft noises in his throat and stroking her back. Eventually her arms go still, hands fisting in his shirt, and there's just low, wet cries that sound tired and miserable.

"You're fine," Jacob tells her, and Rook's not sure anyone has ever heard that tone of voice from him before. "You're fine. You can come and drink something, and then watch the sun rise with me." 

Jacob stares at Rook for a beat longer, before giving a huff of amusement and gently pushing him back flat to the bed. His hand stays on Rook's chest for a moment, hot through his shirt, fingers pressing in briefly, in a way that makes Rook's sleepy brain ask curious, pointed questions, before it lifts away.

"Don't get used to being let out of hard work," Jacob tells him. Before he moves backwards again, knee sliding from the bed.

Rook lets his bedroom door close without a single word of protest, and he realises that he forgot to say thank you. But he falls asleep again, and doesn't remember a single thing for three hours.

When Rook finally gets downstairs, showered and dressed in his own clothes again, Jacob is already outside, a tower of purpose leant over the hood of a truck, talking to three serious looking Peggies. A fourth is carrying what looks like a box of ammunition. Even if Rook was inclined to try and trade the drive for Kim, if he was willing to trust these men to keep their word, men who'd invaded the county, threatened his friends, threatened his goddaughter. Even if for some reason he was willing to let them leave without something in the way of retribution. Rook's pretty sure that the Seeds have already decided their fate.

Though, the more he stares through the window at Jacob's commanding posture, at the way the men nod and point and occasionally ask questions, the more certain he is that whatever's coming is inevitable. And judging by what Rook's seen already, it's a fate they probably deserve. 

Joseph's in the kitchen, getting ready to feed Peanut her breakfast. She's still wearing her night clothes, hair a mess, cheeks bright red, but she's bouncy, and vocal, and she doesn't smell terrible, so someone came back to his room for the baby bag. Which doesn't bother Rook half as much as it probably should.

"Good morning," Rook says, and then wonders whether he's getting too attached to the weird domesticity of it all.

Joseph smiles and returns the greeting, clipping Peanut carefully into her high chair. One long strand of Joseph's hair is trailing down over his glasses, and some insane part of Rook wants to reach out and tuck it back into the tie that holds the rest. Which suggests Joseph is dangerously close to becoming a real person to him, or to becoming someone he's allowed to do that sort of thing to. Rather than a threatening cult leader who thinks God talks to him, and regularly sends people to be sliced open for their sins. The idea that he can be both - Rook doesn't know how he feels about that

There's a pause from Joseph, almost uncertain, where he gestures with the spoon, asking if Rook wants to feed her, now that he's up and dressed. But Rook smiles and shakes his head.

"If you don't mind, I'm going to have coffee, because otherwise she's in danger of getting breakfast up her nose." Truth be told, she usually gets breakfast up her nose anyway. But that's mostly on her, Peanut is not a tidy dinner companion.

She points when she sees Rook, then waves her arm frantically, as if to make sure he's spotted her.

"Oog!"

Rook strokes her tufty hair, until she jiggles and squeals, and he can just see the faintest line of white over the top of her lower gum. 

"Do you think I could ever not notice you, Peanut?"

"You are aware that I'm feeding her dessert for breakfast?" Joseph says, though there's more amusement than judgement in his voice, and he's already spooned half the jar into Peanut's bowl. He's close enough that she's reaching and making excitable noises like she wants to see it in there. Or more likely poke her fingers in and feel it.

Judging by her reaction to the first spoonful, she likes it, fingers immediately pushed into her mouth, like this is her new favourite thing, and she needs to touch it. 

Rook sits himself down next to them both, mug in one hand, and he's enjoying the heat of it, because the air is chill this morning. He turns the jar Joseph has set on the table, enough to see 'peach cobbler' on the outside. He has to admit, that probably isn't a breakfast dish. 

"They sounded breakfast-y," he explains. "I didn't think babies had dessert." Rook has enough trouble getting her to eat two thirds of a jar for dinner. How was she supposed to eat a jar of something, and then a jar of something else?

Peanut's slapping her peach-covered fingers on the chair, head tipped forward and mouth open in mute demand. Joseph's patience and careful spoon-loading is clearly frustrating her. Rook suspects that Jacob and Rook's efficient shovelling has been teaching her bad habits.

Though there is something compelling about watching Joseph Seed's careful and methodical approach to baby feeding, which is a long way from the raving madman that Rook had first slipped handcuffs onto in a church.

"She doesn't seem to mind," Rook points out with a smile. Because it's always nice to see her happy. "She's been more grumpy recently, chewing on everything and trying to eat her own hands. I always thought the build-up to her teething would be longer or louder, but -" Rook gestures, to where Peanut and her new piece of tooth are working together to transfer all the peach cobbler from the dish Joseph is holding into her tiny stomach. 

"She does seem hungry this morning," Joseph agrees. "Jacob gave her a bottle a few hours ago."

"I know Kim's been a little worried about her, since she spent the first three months of her life in the bunker, she worried that she might develop slowly. According to Nick, the doctor has been using the phrase 'concerned about her weight' a lot, and that Kim should just feed her if she's hungry, like she hadn't been doing that already. But I told them that I was an underweight, fussy baby, and that seemed to make her feel better."

Joseph does smile at that, as if the thought amuses him in some way.

They both watch Peanut wave and pinch her fingers at the spoonful of breakfast Joseph seems to be determined to make the perfect size, mumbling through a mouthful of peach dribble in a way that's greedy and impatient.

"Nick thinks she just needs time to catch up."

"Her lungs seem to be fine," Joseph points out. Which might be the first joke Rook has ever heard him make. But he still feels a little bad about that, she's been so good this week that he'd almost forgotten how much noise she can make when she's unhappy, or hungry, or sometimes for no discernible reason at all.

"I'm sorry, if she woke you."

Joseph waves away the suggestion before Rook even finishes it, as if it doesn't matter. 

"I didn't see John this morning," Rook says. Because he seems to always be in the kitchen ridiculously early, living on coffee and just waiting for an opportunity to mock Rook for the disasters he manages to bring on himself, or his inability to concentrate without staring into a mug for ten minutes, trying to remember how to be a functional human being. John once pointed out that the only thing that seemed to push Rook straight from asleep to awake was being shot at. And Rook really fucking hopes he doesn't take that as a challenge.

Joseph tilts his head briefly, though if Rook is expecting something that tells him exactly how Joseph feels about whatever's happening between him and John, he's left disappointed.

"John and Faith are acquiring necessary supplies. They'll be back shortly."

"Do I get to find out what these necessary supplies are?" Rook wonders. He's honestly not expecting an answer, maybe just one of Joseph's mysterious expressions, or a speech about patience and trust.

"Bliss," Joseph offers, easily, as if he's willing to answer any question Rook has now. Which he's honestly not sure whether to feel intrigued about, or terrified over. "And weapons."

That's not actually as surprising as Rook should probably find it. Because he knows that Eden's Gate are still using the Bliss on their followers. It seems fair that any aggressive movements against them are going to involve weaponizing it again.

Once Peanut finishes her breakfast and gets cleaned up, Rook changes her and puts her in her last clean outfit, which is purple and elephant-themed. She talks quietly and pats at the table she can just about reach, since Rook lets her sit on his lap. She still smells like peaches, and that vaguely powdery new person smell, that all babies seem to hold. Every so often she'll tip her head back and grin, as if she wants to know if he's still watching her. Or possibly to show off her new smile.

Joseph steps away for a while, and judging by the soft, intent drone of his voice that drifts down from upstairs, where the second radio is, he's sending a message of some sort to his followers. Rook's still not certain how that works, if there are daily sermons, or whether he just likes to share his thoughts via the radio. The Peggies are scattered all over the county and it's the only way to reach them all. Rook doesn't know whether Eden's Gate has an open door policy, like Pastor Jerome has, which is a slightly disturbing thought when so much of their doctrine seems to be about judgement and sin. People do show up occasionally to talk to Joseph, but it's not exactly an ordinary week for Eden's Gate, and it's not as if Rook has been listening in to see if it's church business, or preparation for a possible assault.

Faith and John are back just before nine, sliding in the door with Jacob. John spots Rook straight away, throws him an awkward look that doesn't seem to know whether he should apologise for what happened before. Though Rook doesn't think anything that happened between them needs to be apologised for. So he just smiles sideways at him, until the uncertain line between John's eyebrows turns into an eyebrow raise. Joseph reappears not long after, embraces his brothers and his sister, and they bond over their new purpose, which seems to be punishing their enemies for the choices they have made, and the sins they have committed. Rook would normally have worried at the amount of enthusiasm that provokes, but at this point they're his enemies too, and he can't bring himself to object. 

Peanut says hello to everyone by squealing and kicking until everyone looks at her. Faith laughs and leans into the back of Rook's chair, fusses at Peanut's little face and red cheeks, tells her she smells of peaches.

There's barely space for all of them, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter. John slides out the chair next to Rook, thigh stretched obviously along the length of his own, as if Rook's ability to forgive him has given his affection an aggressive, reckless edge. Jacob leans in beside him on the other side, comfortably close, rolling out a map of the island, which is marked and ringed in thick black and red lines. Joseph slides Rook's empty mug onto a corner to hold it down.

"We're going over this again," Jacob says, and then he does exactly that. Where everyone's positions will be, where they'll move to depending on how many men they're up against, blind spots where the bridge meets the road, how they'll deal with whatever firepower the soldiers bring. The plan is simple, and efficient, but there's also room for it to change quickly and easily, if anything unexpected happens.

"There's more flexibility in this than you usually like," John says, surprised, and there's a curious tilt of head that's clearly asking a question.

"Because we have Rook now," Jacob points out. "Who's a reckless, contrary shit who does his best work adapting to a situation. I'm leaving him room to breathe."

Rook looks up, surprised, because he'd assumed that he'd just be following Jacob's plan, slipped in wherever he could be most useful. Jacob has actually made him a part of it, has set Rook at the bend, free to move, or to chase, or to throw himself into a helicopter if need be. And Rook isn't sure what to do with that much faith, from Jacob of all people. But Jacob just marks the map where Rook is going to be, gives him a pointed look that says he expects Rook to not let him down. 

They're all going to be in the line of fire this afternoon, and Rook knows that's something they've never objected to. But this is the first time that it's been partly Rook's job to keep them all alive. Some of the positioning will depend on exactly which angle the helicopter lands at, its size and visibility. But Jacob has most of it nailed down.

All that's left is to arm up, and wait for the clock to start pushing towards noon.

Which it does eventually, though long past when Rook had nothing left to do.

Joseph is slowly and carefully putting Peanut's rabbit-eared hat on, as if she's the most important thing in the room, while she playfully tugs at the cord of his rosary, babbles excitement and shakes her head from side to side. Newly re-stitched Toby is tucked into her jacket, and she pats him like she thinks they're both going somewhere fun. And Rook can't help but be relieved that she still seems happy for Rook to take her outside, considering what always seems to happen. 

She's ready to go though, waving at Rook and waiting to be carried out to the car. She pops her mouth when he comes close, then burbles out a line of dribble that Rook wipes away with her t-shirt, which makes her laugh and scrunch her chin down like it tickles

"I need to save Kim," Rook says quietly, to where he can feel Joseph leant in behind him. "I need you to help me save Kim. I can't get Peanut's mom killed." Because if Peanut's going to be safe, if she's going to be happy, then she needs Nick and Kim.

"Then we will save her," Joseph tells him, as if it's that easy, as if Joseph will make it happen, through force of will if necessary. And Rook thinks this is what made so many people believe in him, made so many people follow him half way across the country, into madness and beyond. "We will reclaim her from those who have chosen to come to our home, who have chosen to endanger our children. We will stand together, and those who stand against us will fall."

Peanut reaches up and Rook leans down, lifts her and sits her against his chest, bounces gently until Peanut grins up at him, tiniest speck of white rising through her lower gum, bunny ears flopping back and forth. 

Joseph sets a hand carefully on the back of her head, and then one on the back of Rook's, fingers warm in his hair. 

"I have faith in you," he says.

No pressure or anything, Rook thinks to himself.

 

~

 

Jacob and his men cross the bridge just before noon. Faith heads out after them into the woods, with a black case and a group of quiet, calm Peggies with wide, blown-out eyes, that follow her obediently. Rook isn't sure whether their preparations are genius or madness, but he figures that the Seeds have always walked some strange middle ground, so why change old habits.

There's a conversation about what they're going to do with Peanut, since Rook refuses to stay at the house this time, whether to move her into another car - which garners an immediate and irritated no from both John and Jacob that Joseph has no idea what to do with, and Rook finds wildly hilarious. They eventually settle for leaving Peanut in John's car, tucked far enough back that she's out of the line of fire, where she can be watched by the Peggies that are remaining on the other side. Rook's worried that bringing her is just putting her in harm's way, until Jacob reminds him that they don't want her, they never wanted her. It's just their fucking information they want back. And Rook is never going to be happy unless she's somewhere he can see her, somewhere he can get to her quickly. Which he has to admit, Jacob is absolutely right about. Though he's starting to suspect that Jacob wants to keep an eye on her too. He's not really surprised, Peanut has that effect on people.

The helicopter is exactly on time, and it's not an ordinary helicopter, it's double-width, transport-sized, probably borrowed or stolen from the military. 

Rook watches it land, watches the door slide open, the slow, practiced fall of a dozen men, heavily armed. They part and move around the helicopter, cover Jacob's truck from the front. Rook's pretty sure they've been told to retrieve the drive at all costs. Which is no longer Rook's responsibility, he'd already given it to Joseph, and he honestly doesn't know if Joseph even brought it with him.

The man who exits after them is not a soldier. He's wearing a suit, and fancy shoes, and he's clearly more important than any of the soldiers, or paid minions they've seen so far.

"Check for traps," Fancy Shoes commands. Though Rook doesn't miss the fact that his voice is not the voice from the radio. Someone new then, and he has to wonder how expendable this new face is. If Rook was a rich asshole prone to throwing people away, he certainly wouldn't send anyone he wanted to keep to talk to some crazy cult leader and his army, in the middle of nowhere.

The last man who leaves the helicopter behind Fancy Shoes, is pulling someone with him, and Rook knows immediately who it is. 

Kim's wearing handcuffs, and she looks like she refused to do anything gently. Her face is dirty on one side, and her eye and mouth are bruised in three colours, like she's been wearing them for a while. She comes unhappily, pace angrily reluctant, scowling in a way that clearly resents any moment these assholes get to lead her around like she's bait, or a prize to be won for good behaviour. She's watching them all though, eyes skipping from Joseph, to Jacob, to John, before finally settling on him. Something in her face drops for just a second, before she's wearing no expression at all. Rook finds his hands squeezing a circle around his gun, running through exactly how he would do this, how he would drive through them and take her back, before he makes himself stop. Because this is Jacob's plan.

Fancy Shoes looks between all of them, before his eyes settle on Rook, as if he'd been told to look for him.

"I'm Mr Deacon, I believe you have something for me?"

Someone is trying very hard to be funny, Rook thinks to himself, and then has to wonder whether it's actually on purpose, or whether it's this poor bastard's real name. Still he doesn't react to the question, instead he looks to the right, where Joseph has naturally made himself the head of their semi-circle. Determined to lead, determined to make himself the focus, even against his brothers need to support and protect him.

Not just his brothers, it turns out, because if anyone so much as twitches a gun in Joseph's direction, Rook is going to put a bullet in their throat. Which just proves how far they've all come, of how all the things they've been through have somehow, six months later, led to this.

Joseph lifts his arms.

"And so you have finally come into the light."

He has a whole speech, one of those that sounds as if he's gently chastising you for all your sins, judging you for your poor choices, always quiet though, always a lesson at first. There's no Revelations this time, but maybe that was all for Rook, maybe that was his prophecy to bear and no one else's. Still, it's nice watching Joseph confuse and unnerve someone else for a change.

"I'm afraid I don't have all day," Deacon says smoothly, cutting through Joseph's soft, pointed sentences. Though he doesn't seem very surprised by the introduction of religious condemnation to the negotiating table, which suggests that 'unstable cult leader' was at least somewhere on the file he was given, before he was sent out. "The rules were made very clear to you. If you want Mrs Rye back, produce the hard drive."

It's not technically a hard drive - and Rook has to wonder if anyone knows what's on it, except the man himself. If the information isn't just tightly controlled but denied to his men altogether. Still it doesn't really matter. Because Joseph has been talking just long enough for all the people set back by the helicopter, under the swirling rotors, to have been breathing Bliss fumes for about two minutes. Their muttering and unsteady shifting has finally become noticeable, as they step out of formation, give confused, muddled cries, and turn on people who aren't there.

When the shooting starts, Rook and John go low on one side, Jacob and Joseph pressed against the truck on the other, though Rook suspects that most of the things being shot at by the armed soldiers are actually imaginary. But Jacob is very real indeed, and half of Deacon's protection team go down one by one, confused, frantic, some of them not even facing the right direction. One crashes into the back of the helicopter, and crumples over the foot.

Unfortunately the guards closest to Deacon are situated further away from the swirling white pollen. Which makes five, no six men that are still aware and alert. One of them raises his gun towards Kim, as if he has orders to kill her if anything goes wrong. Rook stands straight up and shoots him right in the forehead, before John catches his belt and drags him back down into cover again, air hissing out between his teeth.

"I'm supposed to be the fucking crazy one," he snaps out. Then turns sideways to put two bullets into a man trying to edge round the back of the helicopter.

That doesn't stop Rook from smiling and leaning up again. There's a soldier in a protective crouch position, trying to cover Deacon. Rook shoots him in the leg so he falls, before Jacob takes him out with a headshot. Then gives a sharp, high whistle.

Rook looks to the right, to the low rise of long grass where the bridge ends, where it leads back down into the valley. He sees it sway and flick, which doesn't look like it's caused by the wind any more, he sees the sliding, weighty mass of pale grey fur, that becomes animal when the grass parts. One man goes down before he can get off a shot, wolf almost the size of him bearing him down. The second closest turns and starts shooting, but his partner decides he's going to take his chances and starts running. Which is pure stupidity, because if there's one thing the wolves around here seem to love, then it's running things down.

The last guard goes down under a lunging bite that nearly takes his head off, helicopter behind him splashed with bright red blood.

Rook notices, once he straightens fully, that Joseph is already standing, has been standing for God knows how long. The long, draft tunnel from the helicopter snaps at his shirt, he has his head up, eyes narrowed behind his glasses, and both arms lifted in Deacon's direction as if to display what he's brought upon himself. He's still speaking, a long rumbling grate that's somehow still audible over the helicopter's rhythmic, rushing _thump, thump, thump_. It doesn't sound like Revelations either, but there's something about judgement, something about vengeance, honest and hard-edged, so maybe it's all his. He looks utterly unconcerned by the madness going on around him, as if he has complete faith that it cannot touch him, that God won't let it, and Rook almost believes it himself. Even if most of him wants to drag Joseph down, or step in front of him, doesn't want him to prove his indestructibility.

Deacon has reached the helicopter again, close enough to pull open the front of it, shouting at the pilots to get him back in the air. But the words choke up in his throat before he's finished. Because the helicopter pilots are dead. The closest tipped forward in his seat, straps holding his body in a slumped-over curve. There's an Eden's Gate cross carved into his forehead, blood running a line between his open eyes, splashed down over the instruments.

Rook watches the man's body lurch to the side, as if it's still alive. But instead it just reveals the crawling, white-clad body of an angel, sex unclear. It's shaven headed and unmasked, eyes wide and savage and utterly mad. It leans in and catches Deacon by the face, pulls him into the front of the helicopter, drags him all the way in, screaming and biting, expensive clothing going quickly red. Deacon's kicking foot knocks the door, shuts it behind him with a final slam.

The man holding Kim seems to realise he's out of his depth and out of friends, left alone behind enemy lines. He has his gun out and up, but there are too many people to point it at, too many circling wolves. He backs up, hits the chopper, and you could feel safe like that, tucked in tight to the metal, no space for someone to get in behind you. If you had someone to pull in.

Kim has her feet spread, arms braced, pulling, resisting his attempt to drag her with him. But he doesn't stay behind her, and the thing about having a human shield, is you're supposed to actually use them as a shield. Everyone has a gun up, and Rook takes a breath, ready to drop him the moment Kim leans away from him again. 

But clearly Kim has had enough of waiting, she stops pulling, lets him drag her in. Then she drops her cuffed hands and grabs the man by the balls, clenches her fingers shut. Until her guard screams like he's going to die, gun sliding off across the ground.

Rook puts him out of his misery.

"Clear," Jacob says flatly, and it has a beautiful sort of finality to it. He tells his men to secure the area, while Rook heads back down the bridge, just far enough to lean into the second car, snap Peanut out of her seat. She makes a happy ' _Oooo_ ' sound when he swings her up and out, babbles against his face.

Kim's already crouching by the man on the ground, unlocking her own handcuffs, and cursing him for about seven generations. When she turns she spots Rook straight away.

"Oh my God," Kim breathes, stumbling upright, and then forward.

"Who's that?" Rook says quietly, he turns Peanut in Kim's direction. Peanut stops absently waving, like she knows there's something Rook wants her to look at.

He sees the exact moment Peanut spots Kim, she stretches in Rook's grip, arms flung out, hands reaching for Kim before Rook is even half way to her. They hit somewhere in the middle. Kim's scratched up hands take Peanut all at once, so quickly and so carefully. She pulls her in, and breathes against her little face, while Peanut squeals delight and pulls at Kim's hair, squashes her face to Kim's cheek, trying her best to say a word that will tell Kim how happy she is to see her. 

"Hey, baby. I have missed you so much, _so much_. Have you been a good girl?" She pulls back, so she can see Peanut's face, so she can stroke her hair, and her cheeks, while Peanut laughs and squeals, and wriggles in Kim's grip, all over-excitement and delight until eventually it almost looks like crying, and then it is crying, as if Peanut has so many feelings she just doesn't know where to put them. Kim shushes her, hand curving over her head. Then she finally looks at Rook, over her daughter, expression lost, like she doesn't know what to say.

"I promised I'd stay with her," Rook says simply. "No matter what."

"You did," Kim says, and her voice is dry, and thick, like she's holding everything but there's no room for it all. "You did."

She reaches out, grabs Rook's face with a gritty, damp hand, and pulls him closer.

"Kay?"

"Yes, Kim," Rook says, because he thinks she's more than earned the right to call him whatever she wants.

Kim takes a breath.

"They sent people after my baby, _my baby_." She sounds devastated and furious. "So, would you please find my husband - and then bring their fucking house down."

It would be Rook's absolute pleasure.


	15. Chapter 15

Kim spends the entire car ride back to Joseph's house with Peanut on her lap, curved between her constantly moving hands. Peanut talks, loudly and excitably, possibly telling Kim in her nonsense language about all the adventures she's had since she saw her last. And she doesn't seem to mind the brief moments where Kim will laugh and pull her against her chest. 

Now Rook is close to her, without the threat of people shooting at them, he can see what he'd missed at first, the scratches and cuts on her fingers, and the back of her hands, the bruising that curves all the way down her face, the blood that's leaked its way through her jacket at the shoulder, and the way she moves one arm awkwardly, as if it hurts.

When the car stops, Rook leads her into the warmth of the house, lets her sink into the sofa with Peanut in her lap. She looks utterly exhausted, face pinched in with it, movements slow like she's having to think about them. The hand that isn't curled around her daughter moves restlessly against her own knee. But there's something bright and determined in her expression, like she's refusing to let tiredness take her.

The Seeds are quiet, and Rook thinks they all understand that Kim needs a minute, that she needs a minute with her baby, before any plans are made, before any equipment is loaded up. Before Rook has to leave her again.

"They were keeping me at the ranger station," Kim says, voice tired but clear. "They split us up. I haven't seen Nick since - I haven't seen Nick since the morning after they took us. One of their helicopters went down carrying something they wanted, something they bought from someone - from somewhere else, I think. There was a lot of talk at the beginning about whether they'd been betrayed, about whether someone was trustworthy - but then they found out that Burt Conrad had found whatever they wanted, that he might have given it to Nick, or hidden it with Nick. I didn't know anything about that, but they didn't believe me."

Kim's hands are sliding on Peanut, petting her gently, like her brain went somewhere it didn't want to go. 

"But then they found out about Kaye, and they thought he'd hidden it with her. A few days later they came back with questions about you. They wanted to know where you'd go, what you'd do." 

Joseph reaches up for the tin again, the one he used to see to Jacob's wound yesterday, bringing it to the couch on quiet feet. He very slowly kneels in front of Kim and gestures at her hands.

"May I?" he asks.

Kim stops talking, looks confused, then seems to realise all at once that she's in Joseph's Seed's house, that she's surrounded by Seeds. Face gone suddenly soft and uncertain, as if this isn't supposed to be what safe looks like. There's a question in her face for Rook. One he's not entirely sure he can answer to her satisfaction right now. But he perches on the coffee table next to her, close enough that she can touch him without reaching out.

"Let Peanut sit next to you, so she doesn't get blood on her, Kim," Rook says quietly.

Kim looks at her scratched-up fingers, flexes them like she's surprised to find them so messy, surprised to find them leaving tacky prints everywhere.

"Yeah," she says slowly. "Yeah, I should do that." Though she's clearly reluctant to take Peanut off of her lap, to lift her and settle her in the cushions beside her. Rook makes a little packed-in spot next to her, so Peanut can still reach Kim's lap and her arm. Kim eventually takes a breath and sits Peanut in it, one hand smoothing over her hair, in long pulls. It goes still when Peanut smiles up at her, waves a hand, Kim breathes out a surprised laugh.

"Sweetie you made a tooth," she realises suddenly. "Oh my God, look at you." She reaches down like she wants to touch it, then seems to remember how dirty she is still, and instead she just curls a hand round Peanut's delicate neck and holds her.

Joseph takes Kim's right hand and cleans it, slowly, carefully, before putting cream on the smaller cuts. Kim watches him with a quiet sort of surprise, slowly moves her hand into an easier position to tend to. Before she looks up at Rook like she's remembered something important.

"Has she been good?" Kim asks. "I bet she's been good, she's always good for you. Was she safe, Rook? Was she safe?"

"She was always with me," he tells her, rather than admitting exactly what's he's had to do to keep her safe. What he's pulled the Seeds into to make sure nothing hurt her. "I wasn't going to let anything happen to her."

Kim nods like that's good enough for her. 

"Kim."

Kim looks up at her name, finds John Seed offering her a mug of coffee that steams gently, and Kim gives him a curious look before taking it. She cradles it in her clean hand with a grateful sigh, while Joseph tends to the other.

"Thank you," she says, surprised, then more softly, towards Joseph. "Thank you."

Rook gestures at the red soaking through her long-sleeved shirt, and staining her jacket.

"Kim, your shoulder." Because if she was hurt enough to bleed that much, then it needs to be looked at.

Kim winces, as if he's reminded her it's there, when she'd been doing a good job so far ignoring it. But it clearly hurts, the movement of that arm slow and cautious.

"Yeah, they didn't appreciate my escape attempt. I had a screwdriver with me, but they took it off me - it's not deep."

"Did anyone clean it?" Rook asks. Because he doubts the tool was brand new, before someone stabbed her with it.

Kim shakes her head, but with a gesture she lets Rook pulls down the edge of her shirt to look at it. She's right, it's not deep, but it's red, and it's been bleeding for a while, pulling open every time she stretches her arm.

"You should get a doctor to look at this later," Rook tells her. She nods absently, as if the idea of things that are going to happen in the future is still something that she can't quite keep in her head. Which reminds Rook unpleasantly of people who were certain they were going to die. No one should have ever made Kim feel that way.

She let's Joseph clean the wound, and dress it with gauze, while she strokes Peanut's hair and describes as much as she can remember from where they kept her.

"They kept moving me, and I could hear noise outside. I think I sat on the floor of every part of that place. They killed Bill, who worked at the station, and then they just left him in the back until he started to smell -" Kim pauses like that's a particularly visceral memory, and Rook knows how she feels. He'd almost managed to forget when the county smelled like corpses. "Nick wasn't there with me, I would have seen him, or heard him. I didn't know if that meant -" she stops again, fingers drifting through Peanut's hair, over and over.

Rook can feel the last week backing up inside her, the weight of it rolling up into a mass that she's going to have to break into pieces and get rid of. Rook can see the adrenaline from today's firefight and rescue draining out of her. 

"I'll make half a bottle for Peanut," he suggests. "She'll be down for a nap soon. You can feed her."

Kim nods, and Rook can tell that's something she wants to do, something normal, something she enjoys.

He leaves her in the living room, makes up a bottle, and after a moment's thought, a sandwich as well. He doesn't know how well they've been feeding Kim, but she should probably eat something anyway. He passes Joseph in the hall and there's the brief, warm clasp of fingers around his shoulder. Joseph suggests that perhaps Rook should make himself something to eat as well, since it's going to be a long day for all of them.

It's not long at all before Kim's asleep on the sofa, in the quietest crash Rook has seen for months. Peanut is tucked into her basket beside her, and one of Kim's arms is dangling, fingers curled round one of her tiny arms. Faith has laid a blanket over her, and now she's tidying away the first aid kit, and the empty mug and plate.

Rook smiles gratitude at her, before going upstairs to change.

His clothes are dirty again, and washing isn't going to help his shirt this time. It's torn down the side from when Rook slid past a torn piece of metal. But someone has left a neatly folded pair of pants and a clean shirt on his bed. In Jacob's own blocky and utilitarian style. Rook isn't entirely sure whether Joseph or Jacob is responsible this time, isn't sure that it matters. It seems as if he's out of options either way. He'd really like to have another shower, but there's not much point, considering what they're going to be doing in a few hours.

He sighs and drops his own stuff at the end of the bed, puts Jacob's clothes on, again. Only to pull open the door afterwards and encounter the man himself. Jacob fills most of the hallway, looking like he might have just settled himself there without intention, but he's too close to Rook's door not to read something into it. Which seems to answer the question of who'd left clothes on his bed.

"Let's hope you don't go through mine as quickly as your own," Jacob tells him.

There's a curl of warm, amused laughter, but it's not from Jacob. Rook swings his head to the side and finds John down the hall.

"Though I'm not going to pretend I'm not enjoying it," Jacob says simply. It's a surprisingly blunt admission, when everything so far has felt curiously subtle, something Rook could ignore if he wanted to. It feels a little bit like a test, but a lot like a question. 

"He is easy to enjoy," John points out.

Rook thinks he should probably say something to John about his need to share personal information with everyone he meets. But Jacob's answering smile, with all the threat taken out of it, is warm, wide enough to feel real. He's so close to Rook, all the way in, somewhere past personal, closer than he ever managed to get when he was making Rook something that belonged to him, something he could use. Though the intent here seems to be roughly the same.

Rook looks at John, because even though the messy thing between them is new, John has always felt possessive, selfish and brittle in his demand to keep the things he thinks belong to him. But John doesn't protest, doesn't tell Jacob to stop, instead he looks quietly interested, like he's waiting for something, waiting to see something. When he catches Rook looking at him he smiles, and it looks far too much like encouragement. Which makes Rook realise all at once, that Jacob is waiting for him to say no, to make it clear one way or the other. But the words are choking up in the back of Rook's throat, rolling into one another and hitting a wall.

"I don't think I signed up for this," he says instead.

Which seems to be too close to a yes, too close to permission. Because Jacob's breathing laughter and leaning in. One hand pressed to the wall over his head, the other tugging at his own clothes on Rook's skin.

Jacob doesn't kiss like John. There's no sense that he wants to win, no desperate need to take what he wants, before it's taken away from him. Jacob kisses him like this was always going to happen, he'd just been waiting for Rook to say yes. Jacob makes a rumbling noise of satisfaction when Rook doesn't pull away, curves a hand round the back of his head and draws him in. They're the same height, everything almost level, no bending, no tilting, just the warmth of Jacob crowded in close. Something Rook thinks would be very easy to get used to. 

Jacob eases back enough to look at him, eyes pale and strangely fierce, and there might be a question in them, but Rook reaches out, digs his fingers into some part of Jacob and pulls him back in, closer than before. Jacob laughs and kisses him again, and then again, then just leaves his mouth over Rook's, before slowly and efficiently taking him apart. Rook's fingers have found their way under Jacob's shirt, against the flexing softness of his waist, he curls them there, feels the sway of Jacob's body. Because he's not going to pretend this isn't something that he'd thought about, about the possibility of Jacob, who's so much more than Rook ever thought he was. But Rook hadn't touched it, because he'd wanted John, wanted to keep him, and all the sharp and messy complication that promised.

John makes a soft noise, approving and pleased, as if Rook has agreed to something he doesn't understand. Which is what eventually makes him pull away, and there must be half a dozen questions on Rook's face, but neither Jacob nor John answer any of them.

Jacob doesn't say a single goddamn word, he just eases back out of Rook's space, warm hands leaving the skin under his pushed-up shirt, in a way that feels far too much like a loss. Jacob heads out like he'd already learned everything he wanted to know, and Rook's left staring at the empty space he'd been in for a long second, swallowing air.

"Why did that feel like a test?" Rook manages, and he means it to come out accusing but instead it's curious, like a question he needs an answer to. He thinks it's his own fault, for not saying no, for being unable to say no, for encouraging things that will likely end badly for him. The fact that he'd wanted all of it shouldn't have mattered, because you can't have both - you can't have _two_.

John laughs, and he's much closer now.

"I have no idea why you're fine with this." Rook isn't sure what's happening any more. He feels a lot like people had forgotten to include him in all the important conversations, that they've made decisions about this without him, and part of him wants to be annoyed about that. But John just smiles that wide, sharp smile, satisfied, like Rook has done everything he'd hoped he would. "I didn't agree to this," Rook says faintly.

John curves in close and hums against his mouth, shushes him quiet.

"Yes, you did."

 

~

 

Peanut's making quiet noises where she's tucked under Kim. Rook wonders whether to wake her, unsure how well Kim will react to Rook taking her daughter away, when she's only just got her back. But he also gets the impression that Kim needs her sleep, that she can't have had any proper good sleep for almost a week. Which is probably the only reason she hasn't woken to Peanut's grumbling already.

He crouches, leans over the basket, then gives an amused wince when Peanut sees him and squeals a greeting, face scrunched up. But a quick glance reveals that Kim still hasn't woken, so he scoops her up, hunting around for a pen and something to write on. He leaves a note in his too-big, spiky handwriting where Kim can see it when she wakes up, then takes Peanut into the kitchen. She's probably about ready for her dinner anyway. Though the only thing left is half a jar of peach cobbler.

Rook lets her help, because it seems to make her happy, though her spoon management is awful, due to her tiny, clumsy fingers, and the fact that they still only really know how to make a fist or point at things. She gets less of it in her hair than he's expecting though, and she burbles into the warm cloth that he wipes her up with afterwards, with a happy sort of acceptance.

Kim's awake when Rook gets back to the living room. She's wearing a delicate white top that looks like it came from Faith's room, gauze bandage thankfully still clean at her shoulder. She still looks pale, but much better, the strange tension she'd been holding smoothed into something tired but calm.

"How are you feeling?"

Kim sighs out a breath and carefully moves her arm.

"Better, more alive, less kidnapped, angry as hell." She gives Rook a wry smile. "I might be feeling a little complicated right now."

Peanut burbles at her, and Kim smiles and gathers her in when Rook leans close.

"Hey, baby. Oh you got _heavy_ , what has Rook been feeding you?" She smiles at him afterwards, and Rook knows that Peanut putting on weight had been something that still worried her. He's not sure whether to admit that he's been feeding her everything, that they've been taking turns feeding her everything.

"I thought you might worry where she was," he admits. "But she was wriggling, and squealing."

"You left a note." Kim points to the note Rook had scribbled out and left on the table next to the couch. ' _Kaye is fine, she's in the kitchen eating peach cobbler_.'

"She liked the first half so much this morning. Though she did get some of it in Joseph's hair."

Kim looks surprised, opens her mouth to speak, and then seem to change her mind about what she wants to say.

"So, we were taken what, four, five days ago?" she says thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Rook says. 

Kim raises an eyebrow at him.

"You want to tell me how exactly you managed to marry into the Seed family since then?"

If he's being honest, Rook still doesn't really understand that one himself. But he's loath to admit as much, he kind of likes people to think he knows what he's doing.

"I wanted to find you and Nick, and I wanted to protect Peanut to the best of my abilities." Looking back on it, from the moment people started shooting at him, he was probably always going to end up at John's house. "I wasn't going to leave her, so I needed help, I needed the best help I could get."

"And so you immediately went with the nuclear option?" she guesses.

"It was for Peanut, of course I went with the nuclear option," Rook points out.

Kim laughs in a way that seems to pull all the air out of her, bounces her daughter on her lap.

"I honestly have no idea how you do half the things that you do. I mean, I'm not complaining, believe me. But how on earth did you manage to get here, to get them all to help you?"

"Peanut helped," Rook tells her. "She's very good at being adorable at people, and making them swear their undying loyalty." 

Kim raises an eyebrow, as if part of her wants to inquire if Rook is joking, or if the Seeds really have gone all in, in defense of her daughter. 

"Of course she is," she says instead. "Also, she's talking now, use her name."

Rook figures that after everything Kim has been through, she's earned that at the very least.

"Yes, Kim."

Kim strokes a hand over Kaye's hair, playing with the little tuft that still doesn't seem to want to do anything, like she's deeply familiar with it. 

"You're going to get him back," she says simply. She doesn't ask Rook to promise her, and Rook's not sure if it's because she doesn't want to make him promise something that's impossible, or she's afraid that he'll do something impossible to make it happen.

"I will do everything I can to get him back," he tells her. "He's my friend, Kim."

"Are you leaving soon?" she asks.

Rook nods. "Jacob's gathering his men, Faith is working on a lot, and I mean _a lot_ of Bliss, John's getting us some maps of the old mine, and Joseph - I have no idea what Joseph is doing but I suspect it's going to be dramatic and thematically appropriate."

Kim breathes a laugh. 

"You'll be safe here until it's over," Rook says. "You can stay in my room upstairs."

"You have a room here?" Kim says, and the amused, teasing way she says it sounds a lot more like herself. Rook suspects he's not going to hear the end of this for while.

"Joseph gave me one when we got here."

"Of course he did," Kim says with a nod. "Because you always were their favourite."

He gives her a look, because he doesn't even know what to do with that. He remembers what being their favourite did to half the county.

"All the bottles are in the kitchen, Joseph says to help yourself if you're hungry. All the baby food is gone now, but I still have half the formula left. I left your house in kind of a hurry, I forgot her animal blocks and her octopus, and I had no change of clothes until Hudson sent something -"

Kim laughs and lays a hand on Rook's chest, makes him stop talking.

"You did fine, Rook, she's fine." She bounces her, as if to demonstrate, and Kaye leans forward and waves dribbly fists at him, like she wants to rub them all over his face. 

Which reminds Rook, Kim doesn't know. She doesn't know, and she's going to love this.

"Oh, hang on, can I take her for just a second." Kim relaxes her hands, lets Rook take her daughter and shuffle back across the room with her.

"Rook, what -"

Rook puts Kaye down on her hands and knees, facing Kim, and then lets her go. Kaye immediately heads in her mom's direction, in her awkward little crawl, giving excited little huffs of effort.

"Oh my God." Kim's smile is threatening to split the edges of her face. She looks like she doesn't know whether she wants to laugh or cry as she watches Kaye's steady, wobbly progress. She settles for messy, adoring laughter.

When Kaye reaches Kim she falls against her shin, then grips her pant leg and laugh-squeals excitement at having reached her. Kim immediately reaches down for her and scoops her up, pulls her in.

"You are amazing," Kim says, and kisses her cheek, nose pressed to the skin like she wants to breathe her in.

Rook would like to stay, to perch his stupidly long body on the small coffee table that shouldn't be taking his weight, and stay with Kim, watch her be unbelievably happy to be around her daughter again. But he still has work to do, he still has one last friend to rescue, one last family piece to smack into the puzzle.

Jacob wants to draw up a plan and head out as quickly as possible, to avoid giving them any time to move extra men back to their main base.

Kim knows, she knows, and she lets Rook off of any awkward speeches he might make, which he kind of loves her for, because he's always fucking hated speeches.

"Go save my husband," Kim tells him.

Kaye kicks her legs and waves both arms at him, as if she agrees.

And who is Rook to argue with that.


	16. Chapter 16

The last base their enemy has is in the old mine. It's the only place left where Nick could be, assuming he's still alive. Which Rook is going to continue to do, until someone shows him a body.

Eden's Gate and Hope County have already scouted out all the entrances and exits. Which aren't all in the same places now, due to the hammering that the ground took during the disaster.

The largest is still the main entry, wide and open enough to drive into, where the the old cart line had run down into the depths. Which is the entrance they're using to feed men in and out of, the one that has the most protection. There's a large barricade in front of the opening, mounted guns, snipers and at least a dozen men on guard at all times. There's a smaller entrance two hundred feet away, less well guarded but still watched, and the rise it sits on is narrow and easy to defend. There's a much larger, open shaft further up the mountain, but it's an eighty foot drop into darkness, with sheer sides. It's almost impossible to climb down into, and even if you did manage it, they'd hear you coming in that echoey chamber, before you made it even a quarter of the way down. There are two more exits in narrow caves underwater, dangerous but doable. A third only if you had breathing equipment, and weren't too bothered by narrow spaces. There's also a smaller cave system, just above the mine, with two collapsed tunnels that used to feed into the back of it, assuming you could clear them quickly and quietly. Assuming you could clear them out at all.

They'd chosen a good place to set up their base.

"Could we make our own entrance?" John asks, where he's folded over on his arms to Rook's left.

"They'd definitely hear us coming then," Rook says. Though it's fair to say they're probably going to hear them coming either way. Jacob could be subtle, at a push, but Rook feels like his two younger brothers would struggle with the concept.

"And you'd risk collapsing the whole system, or killing Nick Rye anyway," Jacob points out.

"Well the whole thing stood up to the ground being shook for a few months, I'd say it was pretty stable."

Jacob wants to go for the main entrance, to go in hard and fast with their superior numbers, using Bliss to confuse and disorient, and a horde of angels to push their way through. Which would open the whole thing up for a second advance, this one with trained soldiers. He lays it out, piece by piece. Though in the end it's Joseph's decision, he'll get the final say on how this thing goes down. But it's while Joseph is leant over the map, hands pressed together, absorbing Jacob's plan that Rook finds himself considering something a bit more reckless. Something a little bit more...him.

He draws the map closer. "John, can you fly the helicopter we liberated today?"

John gives him a curious look. "Yes, why?"

Rook prods at the map with a finger, specifically the lower cave system. "Because you're going to drop me into that big, open shaft, and then I'm going to try and take out the rear section of their forces."

Jacob's quiet for a beat, and that's when Rook knows he likes the idea, because he doesn't veto it right away. But he's also smart enough to know that Rook is effectively going to be behind enemy lines, and out of their reach should anything go wrong.

"That's a long drop, into darkness, with no firm idea about what's waiting for you at the bottom. That whole area could be full of soldiers."

"Or it could be empty." Rook isn't going to know until he goes in. 

"There could be no cover, then you'd effectively be putting yourself in a box."

Rook has already noticed that, and it isn't as if he likes the idea. He just knows that if he can pull it off then they'll tear the forces inside the mine in two directions. Leave them nowhere to retreat. It's a damn good plan.

"I don't see why they'd leave a team at the bottom of an impossible climb, just on the off-chance some lunatic will try it," Rook says. "That's just a waste of manpower. But I'll expect company if it makes you feel better, because that's what I usually do."

Jacob's mouth works for a second, but Rook doesn't think he has any more excuses. Jacob is going to agree with him, it's a wildly reckless plan that relies entirely on Rook going in blind, and then fighting through anything that gets in his way, to reach where they're going to be pushing in from the front. John's watching him, Joseph's watching him, but Rook can't think of an easier way to get inside, to get in quick and deep, and take out a chunk of them before they realised they were bleeding out.

"You won't be able to use explosives," Jacob says quietly.

"I'll just have to be inventive," Rook tells him. Because it wouldn't be the first time. It probably won't be the last.

Jacob eyes him for another minute, he doesn't ask if he's sure, he doesn't tell him it's going to be dangerous as shit, he just leans over the map, puts a black X over the large shaft.

"Then you're going in first, you'll make a good distraction. The real problem with the main entrance is the barricade. Which they've shored up in the last few hours. Rockets might do the trick, but there are too many combustibles inside the entrance, explosives are a bad idea. We've got a few trucks, but they'd have to plough in deep, with no guarantee that they'd get all the way through. We want to smash it open without setting anything inside on fire." Because the last thing they want is a fire in a mine.

Rook takes out his phone, hits dial while everyone else is still talking.

"Grace, I need you to tell Hurk that if he wants to be in on the rescue plan, to get his ass to the Spread Eagle. And I also need you to ask Mary May if I can borrow the Widowmaker one last time."

 

~

 

Rook is in the air an hour later, and John is making the pilot thing look really good. He should have let him take him up in the air the first time he offered. It's not a long flight, but John is taking it very seriously, headset on, glasses down, all tight concentration to his face. It's a nice view while Rook checks his weapons and ammo, straps his bulletproof vest down, coils the rope so it will fall freely.

Until he has to move forward, into the space behind John, where the air is cold and the sky is almost dark.

"I'm kind of enjoying this look on you," Rook admits. He leans down, fingers catching the dangling headset lead, and pulls John in. He kisses him before he can get out a protest, sunglasses crushed against the bridge of his nose. 

"Sit the fuck down, or I'm going to reconsider this whole plan," John says sharply. Because Rook is fairly sure that John would rather be kissing him than dropping him into a big fucking hole in the mountain, and he resents Rook for reminding him of that.

Rook laughs and grabs for the strap above him. "As soon as the rope goes slack, drop it and get the fuck out of here, or the assholes down below are going to take the opportunity to blow you out of the sky."

"They could try," John says simply. "They'd find it a lot harder than they expect."

Rook will not get up and kiss him again, he won't.

"Meet up with the others as soon as you can, because I'm not going to be twiddling my thumbs down there. And you have to promise to insult and threaten people over a radio until I see you again?"

"For you, anything," John tells him.

Rook wraps his leg round the rope, gets ready for the thick material of his glove, and the side of his boot, to take his weight at speed. Then he double checks everything, because this is pretty fucking dangerous, and he's not going to get a second chance. 

"I better fucking see you again," John says, as the helicopter turns, hits the temperature drop of empty space, and Rook can already hear shooting below him.

He steps off the edge.

It's a long way to the bottom.

The moment Rook hits it, he drops the rope behind him and swings his gun up, sliding hard to his right to get against the wall. But there are no bullets, no shouting, it's all silent ahead of him so far. Which is probably going to change very soon.

The first men waiting for him are positioned where the cave opens out, natural formation becoming mined-out rock. They're set high on the walls, but Rook spots them before they spot him. He doesn't think they've been there long enough for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. They're angled towards the other entrance, vulnerable from the side. Rook's in a very good position, depending on how they react when he starts shooting he could take four to six of them before they get back into cover.

He goes low, front to back, and manages to put down four, but a fifth is limping, so he's going to consider it a win. They fall back away from him, into new cover. The one on the far left feels more experienced, snapping out commands, never giving enough of himself for Rook to hit. But Rook knows that sometimes people just need a little encouragement. He angles the shot for the edge of the wall, opposite the tucked down shape of the man who's clearly in command. Then he fires three times, peppering him with shards of rock. Rook hears him cry out and lean away from it, scraping hard into the wall. He sees the sprawl of limbs that immediately tries to draw itself back into cover. But Rook hits him first, twice.

The other men call out, apparently the man's name was Hackley. But there's nothing but silence behind the rock. He seemed to be the only one of them who'd had a plan, or who'd known what the plan was at least, because no one tries to stop Rook from moving forward, from moving up, getting an angle on the last three men, and no matter how quickly they scrabble for new cover, they all go down.

It's like the shooting was a lit fuse, because as soon as the last man falls there's a screech of metal, and a long grinding crash that reverberates through the whole mine. Rook kind of hopes the Widowmaker survived it.

He heads on through the cave, and there's wiring now, lights set every five meters or so, which tells Rook that he's in inhabited, working tunnels. He shifts his gun a little higher, movement's more careful. He can hear shooting now, though it's still far away, echoes that lay over each other, heavy and repetitive.

The radio at his hip clicks and squawks static, as if someone close is trying to get in touch with the fallen soldiers. But the voice that comes through is not what Rook expects, there's no demand for a status update, no questions about him, about his position. Instead the voice is soft, dreamlike.

" _She's so beautiful. She wants me to go to her. She needs me to follow her. She needs me._ "

The whole west passage is clear, the water that trails in slowly from the river outside, that seeps through the walls, and flows thinly at his feet, is steadily leaking green. If Rook drifted any closer he suspects he would see the tiniest flecks of glittering sparkles. But these soldiers, these outsiders, have no tolerance to the Bliss at all. The first of Faith's tests by the helicopter had proven that.

Rook moves on, but there are still whispers through the radio, not always the same voices, muttering over each other. Some of them sound sad and confused, but others are more certain, a quiet determination to do what they're told, to be good, to please the voice inside their head.

" _She told me I could go with her. She told me I could be free._ "

" _She wants me to go into the water._ "

Rook follows the water that flows through this part of the outer mine, gradually finds the bodies of soldiers, in a section of the cave where no one could have been, left without a mark on them, some slumped into the cold walls, others left facedown in the slow-moving stream.

One of their radios is still clutched in a pale hand, left bobbing in the small river of water, and Rook can hear very gentle humming underneath the static.

"Thank you, Faith," he says quietly, and moves on.

They've definitely sent men back into the tunnels to find him and stop him. They crawl in from entrances and exits that loom ahead of Rook, and everyone's eyes have adjusted now, everyone can see fine, and Rook is relying on his ability to push forward, to take from the bodies he steps over, to use everything he can find, knives, rope, climbing axes, to make every bullet count. He burns through his bulletproof vest, it's taken too many hits and he's risking a critical failure. He has the hot graze across his ribs to prove it. Rook stops long enough to unstrap a new one from a man who took a knife to the side of the throat.

The shooting from ahead of him is closer now, and when he rounds a long caved-out tunnel the voices through the radio are no longer unfamiliar. The drone of Joseph's voice is a strangely personal comfort, which should probably worry him, but doesn't.

" _Your trust and your loyalty has been wasted, has been given in service to those who are not worthy of it. They will not care if you fall here. They would see you crushed beneath them, for profit, for power, for the satisfaction of it. Those who would send you to die for nothing are hollow, they are lost. Which is why they will fall, which is why they will crumble. They are not men who would reach out, who would have trust in you, who would have faith in you. They do not deserve to be defended._ " 

There's a slow crackle, as if the radio is being passed over to someone else.

" _A man without purpose is meat, a man without purpose is weak, and when you throw your weak men against a man who has purpose. He will grind you to dust._ "

The voices that echo out afterwards are less sure now, there are fewer commands, fewer check-ins, less professional formality. Now there are more questions, more anger, more _fear_.

" _Who the fuck are these people_?" Comes through the radio Rook's holding, a grating burst of demand, of disbelief, of slow-dawning realisation.

There's shooting again, sharp and heavy, and Rook wants to be there, he wants to protect John, and Joseph, and Jacob - priorities turned upside down in half a year - he wants to make sure that they're safe. But he's still two levels below them, rounding slick walls, taking every man who slides into view and dares to try and kill him, listening to the radios on their belts snap and snap, a new voice, curt and professional. There are demands for reports, demands for their position, as if someone out there is trying to keep their little kingdom together.

But this county doesn't belong to them.

The closer Rook gets to the others the more men he faces, men that are retreating from both sides, pinched in the middle, nowhere to go, reckless in a way that's dangerous, pushing constantly at the edges of Rook's cover. Rook has no choice but to be reckless in response. Pushing forward when he shouldn't, stealing cover from people still using it, going close quarters with a climbing axe, and the knife he'd strapped to his thigh. The soldiers have stopped radioing for back-up, and Rook doesn't know whether everyone else is too busy, or dead, or if they're too afraid to take their eyes off of him for long enough to do it.

But eventually there's no one left to call for help.

Rook's hot and he's sweaty, and there's a new sting in his thigh that he's hoping isn't that bad, not bad enough to slow him down. There's been nothing over the radio but silence for three tunnels, silence as he slips back where the last men came from. Until the shape on his belt clicks, soft and gentle, and there's the slow, measured sound of Joseph singing. 

Rook lets it lead him.

He moves from semi-darkness into light, into the long entrance of the mine, where the tunnels veer off in either direction, offices, old machinery, the old lift that leads up to the higher level and down one floor. When Rook turns off the radio he can still hear the singing, in Joseph's low, breathy voice.

When the lift opens at the top floor, he finds all three of them, dusty but whole. Joseph stretches an arm out, as if he always knew, always had faith, that they would meet here, in the middle.

John, less taken with dramatic prophecies, takes two strides and draws him in, kisses him with a laugh and a clench of teeth. Jacob tosses him more ammunition, and Rook's amused by the idea that his affection is more practical in nature.

They head upwards, swing towards the last part of the mine that's defended. The walkways aren't quiet. Rook can hear low metallic tings, and he knows that men are moving above them. There's only one voice on the radio now, and this one is familiar, though it's not mocking any longer. It's demanding in low, angry tones, a refusal to believe that this is happening, that they've lost control this badly. 

_"How did this happen? You were supposed to be professionals, this is what I'm paying you for."_

But there's no one left to blame, and no way out. Because, unlike some people, Rook's smart enough to know that you don't bed down underground unless there's no other choice, unless the world is ending around you. 

The highest level is quiet, and someone has smashed all the lights. Rook has a nasty feeling that it was on purpose, that whoever this man is, he saved the best soldiers for himself. Rook and Jacob spread apart and go forward, while John and Joseph hang back. Jacob gestures for Rook to stay low, and he does as he's told. There's a wide area filled with machinery, old and new, a scattering of pallets, oil drums, a few empty Bliss barrels and large loading troughs piled with old rock that never made it out of the mine. Rook isn't sure which one to cover, until Jacob waves him to the left. 

They haven't even made it half way into the area, before someone opens fire from deeper in, and the bullets tear through the old metal of the walls, until Jacob and Rook both have to retreat, one behind a loader, the other an old reinforced cart.

The bad guy's personal security is not fucking around, and they clearly have ammo to waste. Rook can barely snap his head out long enough to get a look at them. They're all spread at the end of the cavern, eight or ten of them, in body armour and helmets. Rook's starting to wish the mine was sturdy enough to take a rocket launcher. He's pretty sure a rocket launcher would have helped here.

The shots are biting into the ground at his feet, like a promise. Joseph and John, where they're set back against the newer, larger set of mine equipment, are not going to be able to advance any further. There's no way they're getting past this. 

If only there was something in the way of weapons, or even small explosives around here, they could - Rook looks up, at the old conveyor belt that leads into the loading trough. At the signs that say 'Keep Clear,' and 'Protective Equipment Required,' The machinery here is old as shit, levers half rusted away, and it's an awful fucking climb, up a near-vertical wall to get to it. But Rook's pretty sure he can make it. 

He slings his gun around onto his back

"Jacob, can you hold this position?"

Jacob frowns a question at him. Rook gestures. Jacob raises an eyebrow, and then adjusts his position and draws more ammunition out from the pocket in his pants.

"Don't get killed," he says simply.

Rook is going to try his best not to. Most of the wall is not in view from the other end of the cavern, though once he reaches the top he's going to be spotted, and he'll have a few seconds at best to pull himself up and out of the way. But he can fucking do this. He spent an entire afternoon climbing a mountain once, just to wingsuit off the top of it. Three and a half hours of exhausted, reckless madness for two minutes of utter, fucking joy. He can do this, he can do this.

The wall doesn't want to be climbed, it's gritty and crumbles unexpectedly, but he's hurrying anyway, fingertips and toes slipping. It's the most dangerous fucking thing Rook has done for months. But if he can get to the top - he needs to get to the top. He spent his whole life doing ridiculous shit like this, just because he could, even after there was anyone alive that would care, and he's going to be damned if it's not useful for something.

Thirty feet up, and he's reaching for the lip, starting to pull - only for a face and a gun to appear over the edge, almost startling him into a drop, and it's far too late to go for a grab. But the soldier falls back with a bullet in his head, and Rook doesn't know which brother it was, doesn't know who saved his life, but he's hauling himself over the edge, rolling away from the scatter of gunfire. Then he's lunging upright to the panel of ancient controls, grabbing the lever marked 'Unload,' and pulling with everything he has.

There's a grinding, grating cry of protesting metal - and then the whole thing gives, trough bursting open.

The rockfall sends out a wave of dust and debris, and the roaring crash of it into the end of main cavern drowns out everything else for what feels like forever. 

And then it's completely and utterly silent, nothing but waves of dust, and the roll of tiny pieces of rock through the opened end of the trough. The first thing Rook hears is Jacob giving a low cough, and then John's laughter, low and breathy. Rook doesn't have to climb back down the wall, he slips through the bottom of the trough, onto an unsteady, still-shifting pile of rock and dirt. There's a helmet still slowly rolling on the floor.

Joseph, Jacob and John are standing next to the old line of mine carts, guns held downward.

"I thought I'd get maybe half of them," Rook says. "Distract the rest long enough to take them out as well. To be perfectly honest I wasn't sure that thing would even open all the way."

Jacob drags him in, pats dust all over the side of Rook's face, and smiles, as if he's decided he's going to keep him.

"Whoever saved my ass, thank you."

"You're welcome," Joseph says quietly, and then leads them towards the offices to the left.

The man is charge is in the first room, waiting for his security to return, and when he sees Joseph in the doorway instead his confident expression falls apart. It's clear he never expected his men to fail, he'd probably be more surprised to find them buried under tons of rock. He's younger than Rook expected, not even fully grey, and he looks small in front of them all. Though Rook supposes a lot of rich men would, if you stripped everything away, and left them in the darkness, surrounded them with rock, and men who'd kill them without a second thought. He doesn't even have the decency to look like all of his men had died for him. And Rook knows it's because he doesn't care, he so clearly doesn't care.

"They're worth millions," he says, the words forced out reluctantly as he backs into the darkness, half stumbling but refusing to go down. "All of them. Look at the tests."

Rook has to wonder if that's really what this was all about. If it always comes down to money in the end. But the meteorites are everywhere, everyone has a piece of them, you can't hope to control something like that. You can't own it, there's too much.

"You assume that we care," Jacob tells him. 

Rook covers him from the side, though he's almost certain that the man isn't armed, he doesn't think there's much that he can do now, in this dusty, ancient office, stained with rust and old, crumbling paper. He's obviously wealthy enough to never have expected this to happen to him. But still not smart enough to realise he never should have come here himself. That he never should have set foot in this county. That all the money in the world is not going to buy his way out of this. 

Jacob and John's height difference doesn't seem to matter when they both catch an arm and force the man to his knees.

"You come to our home," Joseph says simply. "Threaten our children, threaten my family."

"You have no idea who I am, what I can make happen," the man says fiercely, like he's still trying to bargain. "What I control." As if he expects one of them to stop and ask him. Does anyone ask? Rook has to wonder. Does anyone ever ask? But it doesn't matter, it rarely matters, especially not to these men. Rook already knows that there's nothing this fancy suit could offer that would make a difference. And now he's going to die without a name.

Rook could ask, he supposes, but he's tired.

Joseph steps in close, makes the man look up at him. "God had a plan for you, just as he had a plan for all of us. You brought violence to our fragile new peace, you were a test for our new family, and you made us stronger. You brought us together, made us whole. And now you have served your purpose."

The man on his knees tries to pull away from Joseph's intent, as if part of him still thinks he can tear himself free. John and Jacob take his weight, pin him where his struggling means nothing. And when Joseph curves his hands around the man's head Rook knows exactly what he's going to do. Even though there's no audience to play to, no congregation to placate, or to impress. 

This is who they are.

Though this time Rook is here in person, not viewing it through a screen. There's no distance to be had, he's close enough to see all of it, the determined, slow violence of it, the way the man stiffens, and pulls, and screams.

When he doesn't struggle any more, when he's still and limp under Joseph's hands, Jacob and John both let go. The man falls backwards, crumples like there's nothing left in him. Rook listens to the dirt fall, to the quiet sound of metal settling in the caves around them. Then he looks up, to the three brothers who have been turning the world upside down since he met them.

Jacob, who looks more comfortable here, spotted with dust and blood, weapons just waiting for him to pick them up and use them. A whole world made of weapons he can bend to his will.

John, with his open, persuasive smile, teeth and beard red. He's all desperate need, and barely controlled violence, willing to do _anything_.

And Joseph, all satisfied mania in the darkness, certain of everything, unwilling to be swayed from his path, God in every decision he makes, palms and thumbs slick to the touch.

Because Rook has realised, all at once, that you don't sign up for part of this, you don't sign up for just one Seed, to touch the edges and shy away from the whole. There is no way to take a piece of this family. There's no way to belong to just one. There is only the whole. Rook has to agree to all of this, to all of them. Every sharp edge, every trauma, every broken piece. 

And that should be terrifying. Because that feels like too much for anyone to bear. That feels like too much to lay on any one person.

-

The office behind Rook is empty, the office next to that too, but the third door won't open to a push. Rook steps back, smashes his gun against the lock, and it breaks apart, because this mine is more than a hundred years old.

The room is dark, but he doesn't need to see anything other than the grubby, shifting figure that squints at him from the corner, tied to a pipe in an awkward slumped-over position. 

Nick is alive. 

Which is the only thing that matters right now, Rook's sole purpose today had been getting to Nick, finding him alive, taking him home. Rook moves, lets his body take him all the way forward until he can catch at Nick's arm. His skin is cold and he looks like shit, he's lost his hat and glasses, the shape of him tipped carelessly against the pipe he's tied to, hair blood-dark on one side. One of his eyes is blown red, but the other fixes on Rook, seems to take a stunned moment to decide if he's real.

"I've been looking for you," Rook says simply, and his relief is like an ocean draining out of him, makes him smile whether he wants to or not. Which seems to prove to Nick that he's not a hallucination.

Nick gives a wheezing laugh, half falls in his direction, on the cracking mess of his name. Rook crouches in front of him, carefully slicing through the ties holding his hands together.

"Kim and Kaye," Nick manages, voice raspy and broken.

"Fine," Rook breathes on a laugh, too much air in his chest. "Both fine, waiting for you."

There's the tread of heavy footsteps behind Rook, and Jacob's hand is passing down a radio, already clicking and spitting noise.

"Rook, Rook are you there?" Kim's voice is a hectic rush of sound.

"Kim!" Nick can't seem to manage anything else, and he gives a low noise of relief when Kim strangles out his name, pushes her own relief, and worry, and joy into the radio. 

Nick just holds it close to him, bloody fingers curled around the plastic.

"I know," he repeats, over and over, lets her talk, lets her tuck the radio close to Kaye, so her babbling noises come through in little bursts, and Nick's smiling like his face is going to break in half. "Hey, Pumpkin. Daddy's missed you."

Rook backs off, he gives them all a moment.


	17. Chapter 17

Once a doctor has had a look at them both, Rook drives Nick and Kim home, even though they insist that he's done enough. But Rook doesn't think he's going to relax until they're both back where they belong, and neither of them look up to driving back themselves, to setting Kaye down, or releasing her waving hands, for long enough to take the wheel and concentrate on the road.

The drive is quiet, Rook doesn't see a single other vehicle, even though it barely counts as late for Hope County. Kaye's making the biggest contribution to the conversation, her excited burbles have both volume and enthusiasm every time her parents smile down at her. Nick is curved all the way into Kim, like he never wants to leave her again, and Kim doesn't seem to mind at all, occasionally stretching up to whisper things that Rook doesn't quite catch, but probably isn't supposed to anyway.

Their house is dark and cold, but otherwise exactly the way Rook left it. Kaye's blanket is still unrolled on the floor, and the animal blocks are scattered haphazardly, quasi-human animal faces smiling up at him. There's an empty bottle he forgot to wash by the sink, Kaye's little bowl and spoon next to it, and it all seems like so long ago.

He shakes his head at Kim's offer of a drink.

"No, you two spend some time together, get some sleep, you look like you need it."

Kim pulls him down and kisses his cheek. "Any time you need us," she says simply.

"For anything," Nick adds. "Seriously man, _anything_."

Rook nods, because there isn't a lot he can say to that. Kim hikes Kaye up higher, turns her to face Rook. Until she's chewing a hand in his direction, rabbit-eared hat amusingly crooked, nose wrinkling before she smiles up at him. He catches her little hands, one of them warm and one faintly dribbly, and shakes them.

"Well, Peanut, looks like our adventure's all done now. You be good for your parents." 

She scratches and tugs at his fingers. But Rook eventually has to let her go.

"Bye bye," he says, and gives a little wave.

"Buhbubb." Kaye waves a hand up and down at him, as he heads back to the car, and even though she's with Kim and Nick now, even though she's safe, and Rook's going to see her again, something in him is still nagging at him not to leave her. Something he has to reluctantly cut loose, because it's all finished and done. Rook isn't responsible for her any more.

He fully intends to goes home. He's been thinking about it since he left Joseph's island. He needs to go home, to his small, cold house. If only for a change of clothes, and a shower, something to eat that isn't taken from someone else's fridge. But somehow he ends up back at the compound, back at Joseph's door. Where Jacob is leant against the doorframe, arms folded, staring out where it's been full dark for hours, animals already venturing out to hunt, making their familiar animal noises, which no longer include surprised cultists getting their asses eaten off. Though that one Rook actually misses sometimes. 

"I told you he'd come back," he says roughly, to someone that Rook doesn't see until he sets foot inside - and it's John, tipped back against the counter. He looks genuinely surprised when he sees Rook, as if he hadn't expected to see him again so soon. The surprise turns into a long, satisfied smile. A shift sideways until there's enough room between the two of them to settle himself.

"I had to come back and pick up my stuff," Rook says. And maybe the fact that he'd never put it all in his car in the first place says something about where he wanted to be. Considering everything they've been through together this week, to the strange way they've been slowly twisting up around each other, maybe it's understandable that he'd find it hard to leave. 

"It's too late to head back tonight," Jacob says firmly. As if they're all pretending that Rook didn't spend months heading from outpost to outpost in the dark. "You can leave in the morning." It sounds a lot like an order, though John's amused noise says something about how well he suspects that's going to work on Rook. 

But Rook's tired, he's tired and Joseph's house is warm. There's a quiet laziness to the world, now everything's done, now everyone is back where they're supposed to be. Almost everyone, he supposes, Rook's still working out where exactly that is for him.

John makes him coffee, asks if the Ryes got home safe, and Rook is curious whether Kaye is going to forge some sort of strange connection between the Seeds and the Ryes. The thought amuses and terrifies him in equal measure. The coffee warms him inside, Rook hadn't even realised until now, how cold the county was getting, as they slide into Winter. Which he'll have to be prepared for when he goes back to work, to his actual job, and not the one that the chaotic whims of the universe keeps trying to give him. John promises that he'll take him flying again before then, like he offered after the bunker, before they were friends, before they were more than friends. Rook will remind him tomorrow that John still gets to choose a tattoo for him, since that was the bargain they made at the very beginning, and Rook really doesn't mind.

Jacob has gathered up a small pile of Kaye's things that didn't make it into the baby bag, and left them on the coffee table. Three socks, all different, her little rubber frog, a spare bottle, one of the little measuring spoons for the formula, and her little bee outfit, all washed and folded.

Rook carries them upstairs with him.

Joseph is by the stairs, one hand full of books like the man never sleeps. He has a smile for Rook as well, though it's more assured, as if God had already told him Rook would be back.

"I just came to pick up my stuff," Rook explains, again, and maybe if he says it enough times it'll be true. "But I don't think Jacob is going to let me out the door afterwards -"

The smile widens, and Joseph sets a hand on his shoulder.

"Understandable, at such a late hour. It's been a long day, I'm sure you'll indulge us all by resting before you head out again." Joseph manages to make that sound like a polite request, more than Jacob had done, at least. But Rook can't miss the pull underneath, more obvious now it's just him, now he's the only one here. As if everyone's waiting for him to make a choice.

Rook can't do anything but nod, as Joseph's hand slides free, as he passes him, carries his books downstairs.

His backpack is still in his room, with the cracked baby bottle that he accidentally trod on. But most surprising is what he finds under the bed, Toby is rolled against the wall, his fluffy yellow body covered with dust, googly eyes smiling up at Rook. He's going to have to get him back to Kaye tomorrow. She'll miss him eventually.

Rook desperately needs a shower, after crawling through a cave and fighting for hours, he's half messy scrapes, half dust and half dried sweat. Which is mathematically impossible, he realises that, but it feels right. He leaves Toby on top of his bag and heads for the bathroom.

He doesn't rush, the shower's small but the water's hot, and it finds every scratch and every long stretch of muscle that he's over-used. He lets them all heat in the water, before shutting it off and stepping out, throwing a towel around his waist.

When he gets back to his room, wrapped in a towel and carrying Jacob's folded clothes, he finds John sprawled out on his bed. He spends a moment admiring the half-turned line of Rook's body.

"I expected you to take longer, I was going to rifle through your things and -" John stops, because he's seen the running line of broken skin and redness where the the bullet grazed Rook in the tunnels. He pushes himself upright and comes close, touches it where it runs along the sensitive part of Rook's ribs, and his fingers are warm, the drift of them slow enough to be both question and indulgence. "What's this?" John asks, curiousity fighting with accusation.

"Bullet that caught a break in my vest," Rook tells him.

John looks briefly angry, and Rook's not sure if that's annoyance that Rook didn't tell him, that he didn't notice, or the fact that there's no one left to punish for it.

John's hand flattens over that scraping line of red, breathes in like he wants to say something sharp, like he wants to bite at Rook's recklessness. But instead he draws him in, kisses him, fingers digging where the towel is tucked at his waist, like he thinks he's allowed. He laughs at Rook's unexpected ability to secure it insanely tightly, smile stretching in a way that says he's not going to stop, and Rook can't bring himself to make him. 

He just pushes the door shut behind him.

It's almost light when Rook wakes up, though that's not the thing that he's most interested in. No, he's more interested in the stretch of bare skin spread over his shoulder and left arm, the long weight of a leg flung over his own. He doesn't remember exactly when he fell asleep. Though he does remember that he'd only managed to get John half undressed the first time, because his arms tangled in the sleeves of his shirt was a really good look for him, Rook remembers the bruised redness of John's mouth, and the low demanding purr of his voice cracking into pieces. He remembers John laughing at his inability to stay awake, once they were too tangled up to be certain what belonged to who. He remembers asking John to stay, and the way John had said yes, in that low, easy tone of voice like he'd just been waiting to use the word. He remembers the slide of bare skin under the sheets that almost, _almost_ made him force himself to stay awake, for just a little longer.

This morning Rook's whole body feels new, though that does include a faint series of long, slow-waking aches, and a sense that he's probably forgotten something important. He can't bring himself to push at it too much though, because he has John's hair under the line of his jaw, and this is very different to the first morning he woke with him, when everyone was dressed and on top of the sheets. No, this is very different, and part of Rook is afraid to wake John, just in case it somehow manages to cause some sort of new disaster he hadn't foreseen. While the other half wants to roll him onto his back and find out what every fucking inch of him feels like.

Rook's starting to think there isn't a single part of his life that isn't determined to be dramatic and exciting.

"I guarantee you that I'm more interesting awake than asleep." John's head tilts back until he can see him, and the hand that was resting low on Rook's stomach comes to life, in a series of slow, investigative slides that make Rook want all over again. Before John is moving, rolling into him, knee pushing to make itself space. 

"It's still early," Rook tells him. Which isn't a refusal, he just wants to see John push for it. He just wants to indulge in John's biting, impatient demands.

"I don't care, I don't care," John says, climbing up over him in long, enticing stretches of tattooed skin, that Rook has to catch hold of, grip tight, pull in. "I don't care if people start shooting at us again. I have been waiting forever. You're going to touch me."

John leans down and kisses him, long hands on Rook's face, John's hair dragging in lines across his nose in a way that makes Rook push it back and hold it, like he's half wanted to for days. It's softer than he expected, long enough to tangle through his fingers.

"I thought I already touched you," Rook reminds him, which makes John laugh and shove the pillows off the bed.

"Oh there'll be no doubt about that in a minute," he says.

Rook really doesn't mind.

It's not quite as early as it was the next time he looks at the clock, which involves untangling himself a little first. And John is still just as reluctant to let him go, tightening his fingers in Rook's hair and drawing him back down to kiss.

"I have to shower," John tells him. "Don't you dare fucking leave without telling me. I'm going to make you pancakes."

Rook laughs against his mouth, then has to stop when John makes it impossible, when he indulges himself utterly.

"Didn't you insist that I had to make the pancakes?" Rook manages, when his mouth is finally free.

"Your pancakes will be a product of my good mood, just for today," John decides, as if he's making an important pronouncement.

Rook's laughing when he leaves the bed, picks up his clothes - well, Jacob's clothes - he really doesn't want to put dirty clothes back on, but he doesn't have much choice. He's not sneaking into Jacob's room to get more. He leaves his boots and socks behind though, even though the floor is cold, cold like Winter is creeping in.

When he gets to the kitchen, Joseph is already by the counter, stirring a mug that's steaming gently, and Rook suspects that it's for him. He's proven right when Joseph smiles and offers it over, fingers seemingly unbothered by the heat of its surface.

"Did you sleep well?" Joseph asks.

If he were anyone else Rook would have expected something suggestive underneath. A subtle reminder that Joseph knows exactly who was in his room last night. 

But instead it's just genuine curiousity, the hope that Rook found some peace, after the madness of the last week. Since last night was the first time that nothing has been pressing at him, there's nothing left to worry about, nothing to prepare for, to wonder what he'll have to break next. The Ryes are hopefully all tucked up in bed, and there's no one left to come looking for revenge. He might be the only person left who's still not exactly sure what they're doing.

"I did, thank you." Rook tucks himself into the chair that's pushed out nearest to Joseph. "And I wanted to thank you, all of you, for helping me rescue Nick and Kim. I know you haven't ever been...well on friendly terms even. But I'm not sure I could have done it without you."

Joseph's hand curls over his shoulder, fingers warm through the fabric.

"Your thanks are unnecessary," Joseph says. "I've told you that we were always supposed to work together, we were supposed to find each other, to build new things together." 

"Still, I know Peanut -" Rook stops, shakes his head. "I mean Kaye, I know Kaye was unexpected, and maybe not always easy for you all, but -"

Joseph's fingers press in.

"She was a joy," he says simply. "For all of us, and she is always welcome in my house, just as you are."

Joseph sets out other mugs as if he knows that they'll be needed soon. Rook's still not entirely sure how, but he's been around long enough to know that Joseph is eerily good at knowing what people will do. And often when they'll do it.

"You're heading back this morning," Joseph adds. "I suspect John will ask to go with you. Though I know that he and Jacob are both reluctant to see you leave so soon." 

Rook has to wonder if they think he won't come back. If they think he'll change his mind about this, once he's in the cold familiarity of his own house, or surrounded by his own friends, remembering all the reasons that this is madness. There's a lot of history between them that isn't even close to clean. Is that what Joseph thinks of him, that he'll leave, that he'll see the jagged mess that waits for him here, and he'll choose something easier?

No, that doesn't seem likely, Joseph has met him after all.

Rook can still feel Joseph at his back, feet almost silent as he moves around him, headed for the fridge. But Rook reaches up and catches his hand as he passes, fingers curled at Joseph's wrist, and the low edge of his palm. He's warmer than Rook, even though he's probably been quietly haunting the house for hours.

"And you?" Rook asks, tips his head back far enough to see Joseph's face, though he's unsure if that will help. "What do you want, Joseph?" Because he already knows what John and Jacob want, messy as their needs are, complicated as they are. 

Joseph doesn't try and pull free, turns to face him instead.

"I want you here with us," Joseph says simply. "I want you to feel welcome. I want you to feel like you belong, like you can come to us when you have need. I want you to see us as we see you, someone who is necessary, someone to share a purpose with."

"You want me to be your brother?" Rook asks, pushing, just a little, because it would be nice to have some clarification, some honesty about Joseph's feelings towards him. Joseph touches more than his brothers, but for him it's far more of a habit, the way he comes close, gathers people in, hands on you before you really noticed it.

Joseph's quiet for a moment.

"No," he says finally, and it seems strangely simple coming from him. There are no excuses, no explanations, no subtle meaning hidden underneath. "But I would be content with -"

The words fall away when Rook draws him down, draws him all the way down, fingers lifting to touch the edge of his glasses.

"Can I?" he asks.

Joseph nods slowly, and maybe that's not the only question he's answering, but Rook draws them free, watches Joseph's eyes close slightly against the light, and they're pale blue, just like his brother's. 

Rook leans up until the chair creaks, one hand sliding into the back of Joseph's hair, pulling gently, until he's close enough to kiss. Joseph's mouth is warm, beard soft against his face, and he sighs at the pressure, which encourages Rook to stretch up, to push open. When Rook had thought about this, considered what all of them might mean, he'd always thought Joseph would make this difficult, or that maybe he wouldn't lust after him at all, but would want something else from him, something much harder for him to give. Rook isn't expecting the push that pins him to the chair, the warm hands on his face that tilt him upwards, let Joseph kiss down into his mouth, familiar patience pulled to pieces, as if Rook's permission is all Joseph was waiting for. Joseph kisses him like he's been starving for it, and if Rook hadn't spent the last hour having sex with his brother, he might have been tempted to make this inappropriate at the breakfast table.

Rook's surprised, when Joseph releases him, abruptly, leaves his mouth cold and empty. But then he realises that Jacob had entered the kitchen without him noticing. He's just inside the doorway, and half his mouth is drawn up on one side. He looks deeply amused, though for a change Rook suspects it's not at him. 

"Good morning," Jacob says.

Joseph doesn't say a word in reply, as if he can read the faint hint of teasing in the words and wants nothing to do with it, and Rook has no idea how he manages to look so serene after that. But Joseph simply seats himself next to Rook, slides his glasses back on, as if nothing unexpected had happened. As if Rook hadn't just somehow managed to acquire himself three members of the same family, against all sense, against all reason. 

But Joseph seems unwilling to let Jacob break the moment entirely, leans close enough to let their shoulders press, the warmth of his hand so close to Rook's that he could take it in one slow movement. But Joseph seems content to let Rook choose how much he wants to take, how far he's willing to go. 

Rook thinks there's a possibility that he might survive this after all.

Jacob makes coffee slowly, while watching the table, though he looks less amused and more satisfied now, and Rook has to wonder how much of this has been discussed without his knowledge. Of whether any of them know exactly how this is going to work, and if any of them are ever going to tell him, or just enjoy him helplessly stumbling his way through it.

Faith drifts in through the back, air-cooled and wearing no shoes, though she has a white sweater with too-long sleeves, hair decorated with large, yellow flowers.

"Good morning," she says brightly, leaning down to kiss Joseph's cheek, and then with a laugh she turns and smiles a kiss against Rook's as well.

John appears not long after, looking every inch like a man who's had a change of clothes here all along, hair annoyingly perfect again. He looks entirely too smug, as if he's won somehow. Which Rook suspects he shouldn't let him get away with this early.

"John promised to make pancakes for breakfast," Rook tells everyone. 

John pulls a face, as if Rook has betrayed him. "I didn't mean for everyone, just you."

"You don't think Joseph, Jacob and Faith deserve pancakes?" Rook asks. 

Jacob hooks a foot round the chair on the other side of Rook, and tugs it out slowly, and Rook can't help but think he knows exactly how much noise that's going to make. 

"I wouldn't say no to breakfast," he says, once it's positioned to his liking, before slowly sinking into it. He's facing where John stands at the counter, like Jacob intends to watch - and then possibly judge - the whole process. 

"I would love pancakes," Faith offers. "No matter who makes them."

Joseph doesn't say a word, he just fixes that calm expression on John, as if he's waiting for him to decide, and in no way using his creepy powers to insist that John make pancakes.

"Fine," John says, word dragged out of him. "You win, I guess I'm making pancakes for the whole family. Joseph, I hope you don't mind me emptying your fridge."

Rook's starting to understand why Joseph's brothers rarely bother to argue with him. Joseph is creepily good at getting things to happen by doing nothing at all.

"Help yourself, John."

"Well I hope you all like burnt pancakes, because it was really more of an absent idea of breakfast rather than a coherent plan." John starts messily arranging utensils and pans, with what he clearly wants to at least look like bad grace. Though his concentration says otherwise. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood this morning."

"We all know why you're in a good mood this morning," Jacob says firmly. As if that's something that everyone can just know now - and Rook thinks that a normal person would be embarrassed, but since he appears to be in some sort of weird, three-way relationship with all of them it probably doesn't even matter.

Jesus, how is this even supposed to work?

"It's a shame Kaye isn't still here," John says absently, though there's genuine disappointment in his voice. "I could have mashed a little one up for her."

"I could ask Kim if Kaye could visit," Rook says quietly. "If you all wanted to see her." 

John makes a pleased noise from the counter, gesturing in Rook's direction with a carton of milk.

"Yes, yes, do that. Do you think she likes ponies?" he asks, curiously, but his expression seems to decide this is a certainty before anyone can answer. "Of course she does, she's a girl, they always like ponies."

Faith laughs, though Rook's not entirely sure whether that's agreement or not. 

"John, do not buy her a pony," Rook tells him. Because he's fairly sure that if he lets that start it's only going to escalate.

"She's sixth months old," Jacob points out, around his second cup of coffee. "She can't ride a pony."

"She'll be adventurous," John says, like he hasn't even heard, shaking pancake mixture off of what's clearly the wrong utensil. "Especially if she ends up with Rook's reckless determination to do everything possible."

"You realise she's not mine," Rook reminds him. "She's not going to be anything like me. God, I hope she's not going to be anything like me." Rook doesn't really want people to remember that he used to regularly roam the county with a dog, a bear, and a cougar. He's not winning any arguments about inappropriate pets.

John waves him quiet, like that's not even important. "You're a formative influence," he insists. "You have a responsibility to prepare her."

Rook's getting a little worried about what he's supposed to be preparing her for now. She only made a tooth yesterday.

"Besides, ponies aren't always gentle," Jacob protests. "Some breeds are known for having a bad temperament, bitey little bastards."

"Maybe start with something smaller," Faith suggests. "Like a puppy, or a rabbit?"

The conversation continues over breakfast, moving from outlandish animals, to rocking horses, to playhouses. Half of John's pancakes are burnt because he's too easily distracted. But Rook covers the black parts with enough syrup that it doesn't matter any more. Until Joseph takes it from him, like the responsible adult he pretends to be. It's the sweetest burnt thing he's ever eaten.

Rook honestly has no idea what's going to happen today, which one of them is going to claim his attention, make this thing a little bit more complicated, a little bit more permanent.

But he's not going to fight it.


End file.
